Proposed Balanced School Budget Looks to Add New Positions

Superintendent Brenda Hodges revealed a balance school budget this week when the Mansfield School Committee held a public hearing for the fiscal 2014 school budget.

Coming in at about $42.5 million, the budget was the work of the committee, Hodges, and Town Manager Bill Ross who worked together to set priorities and figure out a budget that would work financially.

"This has been an interesting exercise to work together on this rather than doing it separately and fighting it out in the media,” Ross said.

 The new budget does include savings from retired teachers but does take into consideration the hiring of 12 desired positions that would cost $635,000

The school committee initially started with 32 desired position but the need to prioritize and budget restraints led to the committee coming up with a list of 12 positions that were given priority.

While Hodges hoped to get all of the new positions in the budget, lower than expected funding from the state’s Chapter 70 program will force additional cuts to make sure the budget is balanced. 

“We know we won’t get all 12 of them but we do believe we’ll get most of them,” Hodges said.

The Qualters Middle Schools looks to gain the most from the new positions with the proposal to hire three special education teachers at a cost of $150,000 and one adjustment counselor for $50,000. The added positions are part of an effort to help the school recover from cuts it suffered in 2009 due to the economic crisis.

“We had to make some very deep cuts and Qualters took the brunt of the cuts for the district. They took more than anyone did,” Hodges said. “We knew it was not going to be good and student performance and test scores showed us that.”

Priorities for the Robinson school include a reading teacher and a school psychologist. The reading teacher is being added due to new studies that show students are more likely to struggle if they are not literate by the time they graduate grade one.

A fifth grade teacher was also added to the budget to help bring average class sizes down from 26-28 students down to 23-24 students. If staff does not change, the average fifth grade class size during fiscal 2014 will be 27 students before dropping to 23 the next year and eventually to under 19 by fiscal 2019.

Despite the drop in enrollment, Hodges says she does not plan to cut teaching positions as she feels it would not help students to remain in large classes with less teachers.

“The class size is still going to remain high and we’re not going to get the job done,” Hodges said.

The largest individual position added to the budget was a request by the school committee to hire an assistant superintendent for $100,000, a position Hodges was traditionally hesitant to ask for due to the needs of the schools. 

The town will vote on the school budget at the May 7 annual town meeting. To see the proposed budget, click here.