The Newton Teachers Association NTA has ramped up a campaign for its members to send emails to the mayor and the School Committee protesting the proposed staffing cuts in the Newton School Department. Here’s the letter from NTA president Michael Zilles.
Dear Mayor Fuller:
I am writing to you to respectfully ask that you stop misrepresenting the city’s support for the schools, and that you fully fund the Newton Public Schools so that they can continue to provide the education the children of Newton need in this time of acute crisis.
First, there is a tone in your email implying that, when you allocate resources to the schools, you are “giving something” to them. You are not. Along with the School Committee and the Superintendent, you are the steward of the school’s finances. There should be not even a whisper or a suggestion of anything different–and certainly no suggestion that you have already “given” the schools more than their fair share when you allocate a greater increase to the school’s budget than the municipal budget.
Second, please be more exacting, and more transparent, about how you have allocated ARPA funds. Yes, you have already “invested” “$28.4 million in ARPA projects out of the $63 million allocation made to the City of Newton.” And yes, a good part, $15.7 million, of those “investments” went to the schools.
BUT, of the funds that went to the schools, $5.9 million were directed towards projects that were already scheduled to happen before the pandemic. The city would have made those investments even if it had not received additional funding from the federal government. You would have borrowed money by issuing bonds, and eventually the taxpayers of Newton would have paid for these investments.So what you have effectively done is provide taxpayers $5.9 million in future tax relief at the same time the schools are in a funding crisis.
BUT, of the funds that went to the schools, some came from $7.6 million that went into the city’s operating budget. The city then used those funds to help it finance its overall allocation to the schools. If, as you say, funding for the NPS is 65% of the city’s operating budget, then 65% of that $7.6 million, or ~$5 million, went into the operating budget of the schools. But those funds did not result in an increase in the overall NPS operating budget. Because you put those funds into the city’s budget and then used them to finance the city’s allocation to the schools, you have effectively provided relief to the city’s operating budget.
MOREOVER, in this time of crisis, the NPS’s costs have inevitably risen. They have lost over $7 million in “revolving funds” from sources such as school building rentals, bus and athletic fees, etc. Yet, in this time of increasing costs and declining revenues, the city’s allocation to the schools over the past two years has actually been low by historical standards.
MOREOVER, not only did you not add more to the school’s budget: you are double counting how much you actually “gave” to the schools: You count that $5 million as part of your “investment” in the schools, and you count them again when you claim they were used to “increase” the city’s allocation to the schools.Neither claim is true.
So what have you actually done? Used ARPA funds to finance the city’s operating budget, saving the city’s operating budget $5 million, without increasing the schools’ operating budget at all. And you have told the citizen’s of Newton that you gave that money to the schools.
A subtotal: the $5.9 million for school projects did not increase the school’s operating budget. The $5 million to the city’s operating budget did not increase the school’s operating budget. So far then, of the $15.7 million you claim to have allocated to the schools, $10.9 million resulted in NO increase to the schools’ operating budget.
That leaves $4.8 million. $1 million of that went to technology, $820 thousand went to COVID costs, and $3 million went to stipends for school employees. That’s it for the ARPA funds. Complicate that picture by the $7 million that the schools have lost in “revolving funds,” and, Mayor Fuller, it is clear not only that you are underfunding the schools, but that you are willfully misrepresenting how you are in fact spending ARPA funds.
Mayor Fuller, you are failing in your fiduciary responsibility to the schools, misleading the the public about your support for the schools, and altogether showing great fiscal irresponsibility to the citizens of Newton, and, most especially, the students of Newton.
Respectfully,
Michael Zilles, President
Newton Teachers Association
If teachers didn’t get the stipend, would that fix the issue (or kick the can) to not have to make cuts this year?
I’m not necessarily suggesting cancelling the stipend, but perhaps the NTA might want to propose cutting back on a small one time stipend so that 70 people dont get fired…
I feel like the stipend for the school-based staff was a lose-lose situation. All of the city-side employees were given a stipend. That was announced on January 21. In mid-February, it was announced that the School Committee was given enough funds that they could either a)give school employees a stipend or b)use the funds for “educational purposes”. What an awful decision for the SC members to have to make, especially knowing that there were staffing cuts looming in the future. At that point, they had two bad choices in front of them:
1)withhold the stipends from school employees (that wouldn’t be fair!!) or 2)give the stipends, knowing that it would contribute to the funding gap. Personally, I think the SC made the right choice. I just wish they hadn’t been put in that position by the mayor….
Great point-by-point takedown of the Mayor by Mike Zilles. I support NTA’s position 100%. The elected “leaders” of this city have lost all perspective. Their inability to address a small budgetary gap in the schools reveals just how lost they really are.
Eh. Zilles goal is to increase teacher salaries and NTA dues (ie have more teachers). If he really cared about anything he would make NPS more desirable for families. Instead, he has played a part in pushing people out. If people continue to leave NPS at the current pace, not only will we continue firing teachers, but we will be closing schools.
Here is some data to think about. Between 2017 and this year, the number of students in NPS has dropped 7.4%. Between 2017 and the 2020-21 school year (the last year where I can get data), the number of NPS teachers (by FTE) has increased by 0.6%.
Maybe the administration will cover it in their budget analysis tonight. Maybe not.
… that would be consistent with special education costs rising. If a kid’s IEP says they need to be in a substantially separate classroom, or have an aide, or spend a certain number of hours a week out of the classroom getting 1:1, NPS is required by law to provide it.
(I will note that there are plenty of kids who do need this kind of education, but who don’t have an IEP saying so, and so are not getting it.)
With COVID there’s been a lot of lost progress in the special needs crowd. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s taking more than 1 hour of focused education to make up the time from March 2020-August 2020 when there was nothing. Our son is still behind where he was in late 2019 – and it was clear in his 3 year assessment.
Yes, without additional funds, special ed FTE’s are going to cannabalize from the rest of the staff. It sucks. I have no answers.
But, there were candidates last year, 5 years, and 9 years ago for mayor and city councilor (then alderman) who were clear about the ever increasing squeeze out on our school budgets and that the staff:student ratios were decreasing…
And then we elect councilors who when questioned about how Newton will make up the money we won’t get from the state if we don’t adjust our housing – do they support an override? Or where do they propose cutting? – that that amount “was a really small portion of the budget.”
I can’t even. That’s 4 FTE’s right there…
/as always, personal statement.
The only thing this city lacks is leadership. Newton is uniquely positioned to develop one of the best public school systems in the country. We enjoyed that status for many years, until NPS began a long slow decline around 1980.
There’s no good excuse for the status quo. We have the resources to offer a superior public school education. And we certainly have the financial ability to fill the current budget gap. I would urge parents to not just accept these cuts. Hold elected officials accountable. The solution to this shortfall is to fill the budget gap through another source. This is not the time to be making these cuts.
What Mike Striar said.
Newton’s increasing spending coupled with declining enrollment is a problem. We are doing a good job attracting people to Newton, and a poor job attracting students to our public schools. The issue, in part, is the diminished education deliverable coupled with a parent-unfriendly environment. A short-term and less disruptive response to the current budget shortfall is to keep the teachers and reduce the administration at the Education Center. We have communities nearby that are doing a better job with education and student retention. Perhaps we borrow their (public document) education deliverables for a while and see if we right-track our education enough to see family/student demand increase.
Here is a short pdf of a PPT presentation I made to the Newton Taxpayers Association in October 2021 that shows some of these figures in graph form using public data. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pTlmYFeEe59s_oAcVWTsVGqhYfpP7Z0B/view?usp=sharing
Amen.
I voted for you, Valerie!
What Mike and Bob said
Looking at the 2022 budget analysis due to this post….
https://www.newtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/69597/637564366082570000
…based on nothing more than a cursory review….
• While a decrease in enrollment is claimed for the short fall, State Education Aid (Chapter 70) actually went up by nearly $400k or a total of nearly $24.5M
• Meanwhile the school budget went up by 4%; $10m increase to an overall budget of over $250m.
• And the largest source of Newton’s revenue is Property Tax which accounts for 84% of the City’s overall revenue.
So… this likely an oversimplification but logically this does not make sense.
⬇️ Less students
⬆️ More revenue – from State and local sources (the majority of the school’s budget comes for property taxes, regardless if the a family utilizes in public or private schools)
…. and NPS still needs MORE money? Sorry, but I just don’t get it.
Matt – It’s simple. more resources are needed to run schools every year for many different reasons besides the number of students
And where is the accountability to leadership for all the declining revenue (enrollment)? The demographic issues (housing, affordability, etc.) is the harder nut to crack and lies with the Mayor and city government. The loss of enrollment to private options has a party who should be held accountable: the Superintendent. Whatever the preexisting dynamics, the past two years have been an utter embarrassment for the city and our schools. NPS leadership has lead to the bottom and if my children left or were not in NPS, nothing I’ve seen would make me enroll them there.
This has nothing to do with NPS educators (who have largely been fantastic in our experience) or the NTA. Our leadership lacks just that. It’s time to clean house there and bring in fresh thinking. No private entity CEO would still have their job with these financials and other management mis-steps. Why the pass here?
@Matt – The three big categories of school spending that have been rising faster than both tax revenues and inflation are health care for staff, special education expenses, and transportation. Note these expenditures have been rising despite the fact that enrollments have dropped.
There have been other expenses that have dropped due to falling enrollment but those reductions have been swamped by the rises in these three categories …. or at least that’s my understanding from reading the reports.
@Gerry – Google: (Town) public school enrollment and Google: (Town) public school budget 2022 and it’s not hard to come up with Newton and peer districts cost per student.
Newton is just over $20k per. Brookline and Wellesley are about $17k and Needham was about $15k (all from memory this morning as I was half awake when I searched) :-)
I agree that inflation will increase cost irrespective of enrollment, but on a per student basis, why is Newton 17% more costly than Brookline and Wellelsey and 30% more than Needham. Are our staff compensation that much more than these peer district? Or perhaps should we look at this little differently…. in terms of which programs are must haves and can provide tangible benefits… and which are less so. This sort of analysis can only work thru a variety of points of views and interests. Not sure we have that here.
Matt I agree with all of what you say.
I was just responding to your earlier post and listing the three big ticket items in the school budget, that had grown faster year-to-year than the rest of the budget.
From the Superintendents Presentation, NPS is highlighting continued covid costs, declining revenue from building rentals and increased substitute teachers. Why are the federal covid related funds not being applied to the school budget to offset these items which are directly related to COVID? I know you would not typically apply one time funds to help a budget but in this case it makes sense since these are not ongoing expenses and there should be ways to bring back the reduced revenue. This seems like an appropriate allocation of those funds. I understand that the Mayor has allocated some funds to the School Dept so either it is not enough or the story they are telling is off. This may not solve the whole problem but is seems like this could at least help the situation.