When it comes to deciding how the Newton Public Schools should spend a $1.7 million surplus, Emily Norton favors investing in full day kindergarten. How about you?
How would you have spent the $1.7 M Newton school surplus?
by Greg Reibman | Jul 22, 2012 | Newton | 30 comments
It would be interesting to hear from our teachers. I think a comprehensive and anonymous survey of Newton’s teachers would be valuable. I’m interested to know what they see – what needs are not being met- what are their biggest challenges and concerns in regard to our city’s youth. I don’t always trust parents to know what is best for their kids.
How about rolling back or eliminating the fees that were increased over the last few years during the budget crisis? We parents pitched in to help make ends meet for the City. I would submit that it is time for the City and NPS to return the favor.
That;s a huge number to say the surplus is due to estimating and not say what assumption was too high. Did they assume price increases that didn’t happen? More importantly, does the City’s CFO review school dept budgets and assumptions? The news here is a surplus, but if the budgeting issue went the other way we wouldn’t be so gitty.
Full Day kindergarten. Speaking from experience here, I can’t think of a single good argument against it. Not entirely sure why it should cost much more, I believe Kindergarten teachers are already paid to work a full week. At the very least, they should make it 4 days a week, with Tuesday being a half day. September can be half days (it is already I think).
Or at least give parents the choice to pay more for full day. The afterschool programs were oversubscribed this year, and many families were not able to participate. We are behind the curve on this one…
I’d like to have someone articulate the relevance of this “surplus” in the context of the “zero based budgeting” approach frequently cited and credited by the Warren Administration for generating large saving$. Does this “surplus” indicate success or failure of that budgeting philosophy, and what are the implications for the next school budget?
Agree with Bill Brandel. Roll back some of the fees.
Mike Striar — Also recall that the CFO did long term projections keying off recent needs. What does this surplus mean in that context? If I’m understanding things, this is $100 per taxpayer so it’s not something that’s lost in the rounding.
Given the difficulty of predicting future expenses, I’d favor using the surplus for a one-time expense or something easily reversible in the future should the need arise. Rolling back fees is an excellent idea and fits those parameters.
I remain of the impression that our schools are dramatically underfunded, so the term “surplus”, while correct in budgetary lingo, is a misnomer. Unfortunately there are those whose will interpret this thread as implying our schools are overfunded, and we’re now looking for ways to spend extra money. Quite frankly that message worries me.
But I’m focussing on another point… The Warren Administrations use of “zero based budgeting”. Maybe I don’t understand the concept. Or, maybe the concept is just total BS. But I’d like to have someone explain to me how we ended up with a $1.7M surplus using the precept of so-called zero based budgeting, and what the implications are for next year’s school budget.
I think reducing fees is the way to go. For a first grader and a fifth grader, I am paying over $600 to bus my kids to school. If I drove my Prius, it would cost less. However the bus is already coming to pick up the other 23 kids at the stop.
Stop nickel and diming us! I pay real estate taxes . . . .
I think technology should be funded but not with this money. This isn’t a surplus, it is from all the cuts (larger class sizes, more kids to a SPED aide, more SPED services “cut”). This is funny money.
Use it to lower fees!
Mike Striar — You seem skeptical that the administration used the zero-based concept properly. But if instead you’re really asking what the zero-based concept is about — the idea is that instead of starting a new budget with the current program needs, you ask everyone to justify all budget items down to the basics of people, space, toilet paper, etc. It is unlikely that you get $1.7mm about of that type of process as a result of budget padding or sloppy math. The more likely scenario where they mention conservative estimation is that they assumed a price increase somewhere and it turned out to be a decrease (electricity cost could be an example). Or it could be the type of item like legal expense or snow removal where you always had something but this year there was little need. I’m sure anyone on the school comm can tell us exactly where the $1.7mm is from.
My concern is that municipalities in general and Newton specifically set up the school enterprise as a related entity that does not have the same budget staff and overview as the rest of the city. I’d like to know if our CFO was the point person on this budget process and ultimate approval — just curious, not saying anyone missed anything.
ah OK, I’ll bite. wonderful surprise surplus is politico speak for grab your ankles – here comes da override – giddyup!!
Schlock, everytime someone mentions funds you say, ah here it goes it’s lingo for override. One of these times you’ll be right:)!
Mike, Hoss gave you a terrific overview of zero based budgeting, it’s tough to tell whether this $1.7 mil is due to zero based or from cost savings from insurance, etc. We weren’t involved in the budgetary process so unless someone is more in the know than us, tough to know.
The administration has said that the city saved $8 mil in the first two years of zero based budgeting (from the Mayors state of the city’s address this year).
When I ran for Mayor on this issue, the Cohen people kept coming up to me telling me I didnt know what I was talking about, that you can’t zero base budget a government entity. Arguing with a group of people who know absolutely everything about everything is frustrating, just another reason we should never have the Cohen disciples control the city ever again…no thinking outside of the box!!!
Hoss has described the zero based concept as I understood it. And he’s also included an explanation of how we might have ended up with a $1.7M “surplus” in the school budget. Such a “surplus” may result from initially overestimating a projected expense. Perhaps it reflects a savings in heating oil over what turned out to be a mild winter.
So, is that what happened? What specific projected expense [or expenses] caused the “surplus”? I think it’s very important to understand how we ended up with $1.7M left in a budget that’s been under stress for decades.
As Fig mentions, kindergarten teachers are already paid for a full day. So regardless of this surplus, Newton could be offering full day kindergarten already, and we should be.
No one on the SC wants to help educate us about this one? It would be helpful to know how this surplus came about. It would also be helpful to get a primer on SC finance. What I mean by the latter is if this was a $1.7mm deficit, wouldn’t that have no effect on the current year? I though local gov’t gov’t finance worked on appropriations where we charge according to accruals and make up differences in a later period. So if I’m right about deficits — and I’m not confident that I got that correct — why aren’t we being consistent and let the surplus relieve the pressure on future budgets?
@Emily: I find it hard to believe that switching to full day kindergarten doesn’t require addition teacher FTEs. That can’t really be true, is it?
And more specifically what are the costs for FDK?
The surplus funds should be used to buy all the naming rights for NNHS and NSHS (without going through NSF that is).
@Greg: the K teachers are already working full time, being paid full time. Right now half the K’s go home at 12:30 every day so K teachers have 10-11 kids in the afternoons. I think if K teachers are effective at teaching a class of 20-22 kids in the morning, they could be effective at teaching a class of 20-22 kids in the afternoons. Especially if they scheduled the day so the literacy & math are in the mornings, and we already have aides being paid to be there, and then did extracurriculars like arts, music and PE in the afternoons when there is no need to break kids up into smaller groups (in which case you’d want to have more adults on hand)
Bottom line is over 80% of Mass communities have Full Day K, if they are able to figure it out, we could figure it out too. Jim Marini set up a task force in order to implement Full Day K, if he were still here we would have it by now. Enough with the excuses, we should just get it done.
From the March 27 2012 Newton Tab: “Many kindergartners can benefit from full-day programs, especially those who have attended little or no preschool and arrive in school with gaps in language and literacy, State Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester said recently. “A high-quality kindergarten experience that’s rich in literature and language and numbers goes a long way toward mitigating those gaps,” Chester said. “It’s absolutely a critical experience.”
I have a completely different take on this situation; one that would require only a small fraction of the surplus and yield (IMHO) major benefits. I have a daughter in high school and am truly disturbed about some of the material used in her World History class. I’m *not* talking about the Arab World Studies Notebook, which I know has been the subject of a lot of controversy but is no longer in use (and BTW, almost everything written in the Newton Tab about the AWSN and the ‘activists’ who opposed it is wrong-the comments to the articles on the website have the disheartening details).
Much of the other material used in units on world religions and the Middle East are truly awful. I’m not talking about ideology, I’m talking about basic facts. One handout my daughter received actually claimed that the Catholic church is considering a return to polygamy (I am NOT making this up, the article is on a blog a parents created to ‘showcase’ what students are learning from). Other material states that there are more Muslims than Jews in the U.S. (this just isn’t so). A timeline describes the year 1291 as the date “Crusaders are finally driven out of the Holy Land”. Almost every piece of material has at least one important error of fact or concept. Some of it is due to political bias but other material is just flat-out strange, such as the ‘Catholics to begin plural marriage’ piece.
I have no idea where teachers find this material. It isn’t a problem in just one class or one teacher; strange claims seem to abound. On the other hand it could be worse; apparently at one point the AWSN had a chapter describing how early Muslim explorers intermarried with Native Americans, giving Native American “royalty” Muslim names (I’m really not making this up; that’s the problem). It would have been an interesting addition to Newton classrooms.
I’ve asked several administrators if some of the material could be reviewed before being handed out but was told it wasn’t necessary because “most” of it is accurate and because “we trust our teachers” (?). In the meantime, students are learning from sources that are literally laughable. I’m seriously considering taking my daughter out of World History and having her take the course elsewhere if next year is the same way. I’m sure this will give administrators kinniptions (is that a Boston word?) and they will hate me more than they do already-I’m considered a troublemaker because I pointed this out to them-but every time I think about my child actually learning this *%)#&, I feel like crying. What good is a $200 million school, smartboards, and an IT program when students are learning junk? Of course I can and do correct her mislearning, but why is our supposedly excellent school system teaching crazy nonsense instead of facts?
Anyway, I’d love to have some intelligent, normal person look through materials used in history and possibly other classes to make sure that students aren’t learning that Pocahontas is a Muslim name, or that Jews-I mean Israelis-don’t slaughter small children for fun, or the other things their trustworthy teachers are telling them is true. (I’m trying not to focus on the fallacies about Islam, but the AWSN and similar books are such low-hanging fruit with such truly crazy ideas that it’s hard not to).
Having someone read this material, as teachers are supposed to do but apparently don’t (at least I hope they don’t; I’m not sure which would be worse-for them not to bother to read it or to read it and think it’s O.K.) would be less than a 1/4 time position and cost less than $35,000.00 including benefits (that’s a guesstimate).
But even though it would make for much better courses and allow students and their parents to focus on learning instead of trying to figure out what’s true and what’s not, this will never happen. Because “we trust our teachers”. And I’m sure that most teachers *are* trustworthy, at least in most subjects. Sometimes people do need a little help. But not in Newton, because everyone is above average all of the time, and someone without a PhD is just a lower-class shlub who should stop bothering all the smart people in the Ed building with their silly ideas about “facts” and “truth”.
I’ll dream on….
I forgot to put in the name of the website I described – http://www.newtonparents.org. The name of the group is Parents for Excellence in Newton Education (PENS).
The Newton Patch article on this topic is interesting. Speaking with the Deputy Superintendent of NPS, The Patch reports…
“the unanticipated surplus came in part from conservative estimating, especially in the areas of transportation and contracted services.”
The Patch story goes on to quote the Deputy Superintendent…
“Usually all the line items balance out. I would characterize this as a lot of positives, but complicated.”
Hmmm, why should it be so complicated?
@Emily– What’s the cost estimate for full day kindergarten? Just wondering if we could have had full day kindergarten last year, if our “zero based budgeting” estimates had been more accurate.
Mike Striar — There really isn’t any financial variance that can’t be clearly explained to any level of an organization — right? This is $100 per taxpayer and the answer is that we wouldn’t understand it if we knew what happened — i.e., too complicated? Try saying that to a Board of Directors
Mike. you ran for Mayor. Do you know what happens if a budget item goes $1.7mm OVER the appropriation? Doesn’t that get shifted to the new fiscal year? IF so, why aren;t they consistent w a surplus? Using surplus funds will simply increase program costs for the next year and we’ll hear cries of distress and teacher layoffs
Hoss– In the Patch article the Deputy Superintendent of schools makes a few recommendations as to how the “surplus” might be used, so I assume the City still has some flexibility to apply those funds in other ways. As I understand zero based budgeting though, those line items responsible for the “surplus” [whatever they might be], would not simply transfer to next years budget, because that budget would start at zero $, and those items would have to be resubmitted and reconsidered for budget approval.
There are two things bothering me about this “surplus.”
1. The City’s lack of articulation in clearly identifying the source[s].
2. In a school system that lacks funding for all its needs, might that $1.7M have been better allocated? For example: Might we have been able to fund full day kindergarten, reduce class size, or roll back fees, had this money been allocated to one or more of those purposes, rather than the mystery purpose it was initially targeted toward?
Mike Striar — It’s easy to add things, very hard to take them away. We saw that with small stuff like recorder lessons — people don’t like change. This is true even in a zero-based cycle. In fact the zero-based consept gets a weaker as time goes along because once the CEO is convinced that something is needed, they tend not to reassess things with the same scrutiny they did the first year zero-based was initiated.
My question was not about budgeting, it was about municipal accounting. I thought that expenses were appropriated and any cost overruns were corrected in another way. In my mind, if this is the convention, we should not spend a surplus, just use the same basis of correcting for the over-appropriation. But I’m obviously weak in this area.
I have trouble viewing this as a surplus, when elsewhere in school expenses, the Day and elementary modular projects contain $3 million over their original budget for unanticipated sprinkler requirements. Why shouldn’t the $1.7 million go toward offsetting these over-budget expenses, especially since there is no assurance that the savings in health insurance, etc., will continue indefinitely, rather than spending on computers or staff positions that we would otherwise have done without?
I watched the latest SC mtg on cable last night since I was interested in this windfall surplus I did tune in a bit late so I shouldn’t comment too much on the discussion. What I didn’t hear — and maybe the discussion was early — was why there is an assumption that this surplus is the SC’s free money to spend. If this was a deficit, I don’t think the SC would, under municiple finance, be forced to make up for it in the current year.
In my thinking, Newton overallocated taxes to the SC this year and these funds should represent a rebate to Newton and not enjoyed as free money unless our BoA says it should. Under such a system where the budgeting entity gets to spend a surplus — why would they ever turn in an honest budget? The entity would play this system by padding estimates until City Hall catches on. Why isn’t the BoA determining if this overallocation should go to the SC and not for other needs?
To the question about whether the surplus represents an “overallocation” to the school department: Each year the city allocates a sum of money to the school system, and the school system determines what we will spend it on following the budget guidelines provided by the SC. Other than the new Chapter 70 aide, this surplus is simply the result of NPS spending less in certain categories than they originally projected.
Every year NPS decides how to allocate this money within our system. Holding money for, say, a certain level of SPED outplacements means there is less money for, say, literacy aides. If our internal projections are off and we have fewer SPED outplacements than expected, there is more money available to spend on other school priorities.
Even when estimates are tight, some expense categories come in high and others come in low at the end of a year. When we are lucky they balance out. The school department reshuffles money all the time based upon this variability. This year, it just happened that a number of larger categories all came in at surplus. Energy costs were lower than budgeted due to a warm winter. Our health care costs for school employees were lower than budgeted, perhaps due to the good weather or to normal variability. We sent fewer kids out of district, so both tuition and transportation costs were lower. Should the surplus go back to the City? Well, considering it came through internal school department compromises that underfunded other school priorities, I would strongly argue that the school department and the SC maintain the autonomy to internally reallocate.
Some of the surplus has been allocated towards items in next year’s budget that are currently underfunded. Some has been allocated to reserves.
Why do we have reserves if the Mayor is committed to zero-based budgeting? Because our budget for 2012-2013 was passed in the spring and our programming for the year has been built around this budget. The surplus is from 2011-2012. If variable costs (heating bill, for example) are high this coming year, the reserves will help pay for them without NPS having to cut pieces off of this carefully crafted budget.
The BOA has the opportunity to weigh in on the following year’s school budget every spring. And if they think they are being duped and that NPS is padding their budget, well, they have no track record of sitting around quietly and accepting it. 🙂
Steve Siegel — Ok, I think you’re saying there is annual oversight by the BoA (I should pay more attention). I think you’re also suggesting that in the case of a deficit resulting from overspending, that money would deplete reserves. With that, I’m good. Thanks for explaining this.
There are so many worthy ways to spend the extra money. How about fixing the science labs at South?