This month I shared the 2020-21 school year (FY21) budget with the Needham School Committee. The proposed plan totals $80,943,823 and represents a $4.9 million, or 6.5% spending increase over the current budget year. I believe this request has been thoughtfully considered and provides the resources required to address existing staff contractual obligations, enrollment growth, special education needs, and the District’s Portrait of a Needham Graduate Five-Year Strategic Plan.
The two key components of the budget plan
include Level Service Requests and Program Improvement Requests:
• Level Service Requests
Level service
requests represent the resources required to bring existing and necessary
programs, contracts, and staffing levels into the new fiscal year. In order to
maintain class sizes at acceptable levels, additional classroom,
administrative, and special education resources are required and included as
part of level service.
- Contractual Salary Increases. Negotiated contracts for all existing employees
account for $2.9 million, about 60% of the total requested increase. In order to recruit, support, and retain a
talented faculty and staff, we must provide reasonable yet competitive salaries
for our staff, teachers, and school leaders.
- Enrollment, Class Size, Program support. Overall enrollment is projected to
increase by 64 pupils in FY21, with 75% of this increase occurring at the elementary
level and 25% occurring at the secondary school level. A total of 2.4 classroom Full-Time
Equivalents (FTE) are proposed for Pollard, and 1.5 classroom FTE are proposed
for the high school. A total of .77 FTE
for elementary classroom teaching and math intervention support also is
included. Assistant principal positions at High Rock, Mitchell, Sunita L.
Williams, and Eliot are proposed to increase by a total of .8 FTE.
- Special Education and Student Support Service Costs.
Increases in the number of special education students being served, special
education tuition, and other mandated service costs amount to $1.3 million of
the new funds requested, and include 8.1 FTE new special education, counseling,
and English Language Learner (ELL) teachers and 2.09 FTE teacher assistants and
administrative support. The need to
provide additional resources for professional services, which includes
consultation, testing, counseling, and home services, is significantly
increased and rising tuition costs for students requiring services outside of
the district are also reflected in this budget plan. The most significant
component of the plan, however, is to address inequities in the number of
students served within our schools and adjust and balance the caseloads of
special educators to ensure they are able to meet student needs and build
program capacity within each school.
• Program Improvement
Program Improvement requests are meant to
create, enhance, improve, or expand programs to serve student and school
needs. Due to the necessity of funding
Level Service needs, it was not feasible to include much of the over $790,000
in program improvement initiatives sought by principals and program
leaders. However, funds totaling $100,633
for key teacher leader stipends, high school textbooks, and technology
infrastructure are proposed as part of this budget plan.
I recognize that we have developed a plan
that seeks more funding than the Town’s projections for revenue initially
support. At this early date, we also are uncertain what possible adjustments to
state funding may mean to the Town and School budgets. But we also are
obligated to share with the School Committee and the community what resources
are minimally required to meet student needs and address our strategic
priorities. Additional details about the budget plan may be found here: NPS FY21 Budget Proposal
