Since the override vote failed this week, some money will need to be found in the city budget – either by forgoing planned future projects or cutting back on existing programs or budgets.
Where in the city budget do you think money could/should be saved?
Ask billionaire uncle “city of Boston” to pay their fair share for the students they send to us because of THEIR failed schools.
Note, simply asking for fair share and nothing else. They get billions in tax revenue, they can afford it and we are their fools
This has been discussed before. I don’t think elimination of Metco actually saves Newton significant funds. See below from Metco website. Certainly if our classrooms get overcrowded that Metco grant may not be enough, but generally the placement is designed to fill spots, not overcrowd a classroom. Also we have the ability to reduce our accepted placements to deal with overcrowding if it is across the board. My recollection is the on net this would be a minor cost savings at best. (And for the record we do get funds for participating Bugek).
Wouldn’t my town save money by getting rid of METCO?
A: Each district has its own way of determining the cost impact of the METCO program based on what individual districts offer students above and beyond what may be paid for through the METCO grant. Generally speaking, since METCO student placement is based on available seating, and since METCO students are dispersed in classrooms throughout the school system, unless a district is subsidizing METCO grant funding (ie. paying METCO staff salaries or subsidizing transportation or office costs, etc.) it is unlikely that elimination of the METCO Program would result in cost saving measures. On the contrary, because participating school districts usually receive a portion of the METCO funding for professional staff salaries in that district – the amount of which is determined by each district – the district would lose this money immediately upon termination of its participation in METCO. Additionally, the loss of the positive social impact that the METCO program provides cannot be measured in dollars and cents.
Let me correct a misperception. The cost of METCO is north of $30K per student. We make a long-term commitment to the METCO students that we welcome. It would be unethical if we did otherwise. As cost accountants and economists know, in the long run all costs are variable. As such, average cost, not marginal cost, is the relevant per pupil cost.
The irony is that on the same day that the SC deliberated about telling us how to vote on the override, they spent a minute or two to vote on increasing METCO participation with no consideration of cost whatsoever. Should we be surprised that a body that makes decisions without recognizing costs needs money?
This blog is not about the cost of METCO and I don’t want to hijack it with bloat. If you want more analysis of this, google my name, email me, and I will give you more detail.
Fig,
No one mentioned getting rid or reducing headcount. You brought that up.
We are simply asking to be properly compensated. I believe out of zone costs did escalate over 15% last year.
We are asking a billionaire to pay their fair share.
I think the out of zone costs that went up are the out of zone costs for special Ed. Namely all of the kids we are legally required to educate on IEPs that we send to other schools and pay those schools to educate. Because the Newton school system can’t do it for a host of reasons. I don’t think the METCO costs went up significantly but would be happy to see the reference.
We need to ask the colleges and country clubs in the City to make monetary contributions in lieu of taxes.
I agree with Peter on Pilots needing to be revisited. I would also love a return to zero based budgeting beginning with a review of staffing and department changes in the City/Schools during the last decade. What positions have been added, which ones left unfilled, etc. For example, what were the long term impacts of reducing the number of traffic enforcement officers (who I was told paid for themselves), did it make hiring crossing guards more difficult, affect policing or the number of parents driving?
Plus an examination of the building stock, how many of the City’s 80+ buildings are being fully used? How many buildings that the City doesn’t own, are they maintaining or staffing, etc.
I thought the budget was still zero based.
I don’t think ZBB is done yearly (nor should it be yearly because it seems time consuming) but it seems appropriate when the budget it tight:
Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a method of budgeting in which all expenses must be justified for each new period. The process of zero-based budgeting starts from a “zero base,” and every function within an organization is analyzed for its needs and costs. The budgets are then built around what is needed for the upcoming period, regardless of whether each budget is higher or lower than the previous one. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/z/zbb.asp
Paraprofessional positions have been added but remained unfilled because it’s a low-wage job. Very few candidates apply for these positions. Most of these positions are legally required and we’re don’t have candidates to fill them.
The school; buildings are fully used with one exception. A drop in enrollment of 1000 students in a school system the size of Newton doesn’t have much of an impact on staffing. For example, an elementary school with 20 classrooms can lose 50 students and not lose staff because those 50 students tend to be spread out from k-5, with maybe one grade level absorbing a higher or lower class size. Multiply that by 15 elementary schools and four middle schools, and it doesn’t make a significant difference in teaching staff.
As for maintenance of public buildings, Newton has done an abysmal job of that for decades and as a result, the cost of repairs has increased.
Jane,
The purpose of this thread was to suggest cuts and not justify the status quo.
If we cant cut from schools which is majority of budget then we have to cut DEEP elsewhere
Buget-
Posted in the wrong thread!
I’m thinking that the mayor has already turned over most of the stones looking for this money. Maybe there is a pot of gold hiding in the closet of an old park rec house out there, I hope there is. I would imagine she would not take on a big political risk like an override if she could at all help it. She already knows what will have to be cut and she knows people are going to scream bloody murder when they find out what it is. I’m just drawing a blank on where the city should tighten the belt.
Sorry that is incorrect. She could delay funding the pension by 7 years to 2037, still before the 2040 requirement, and come up with >5 mil per year.
She doesnt want to fund NPS because she doesnt care. Evidence: all her kids went to private, created a crisis threatenting to fire specialists and interventionists last year, and now created this artificial crisis. Kudos to newton for seeing through her bullshit and the army of bullshiters she had working for her.
How disgraceful she could threatened 40-50 teacher jobs while fulling funding the senior center. Disgraceful. Sad.
The mayor cannot act unilaterally to delay the pension payoff. City Council would have to be a partner, and the Retirement Board has absolute last say because they can have the state take money from local aid if necessary.
I am all for the discussion, but consensus has to be reached. I would personally would only be in favor of something like a three year delay in pension payoff because of the potential financial impacts.
@Mike, what financial impacts and why only 3 year? As we saw last year, being early isnt always better. Now we have a recession, market decline, banking crisis, etc.
We need liquidity, not commitments ahead of requirement.
The Mayor was going to apply $7.5 M in free cash to Horace Mann. Since that portion of the override was not approved , could that free cash be used towards the School Dept gap? So the orig gap was $6-8M without the operating override and $4.5 M with but then will more fine tuning they were saying that with the override the gap was going to be closer $2M. Thus wouldn’t the no override gap be lower than orig anticipated? Yes I know using one time funds is not good practice on ongoing expenses but maybe it buys more time to evaluate where smart cuts can be made moving forward.
On another point people talk about not using one time funds towards the schools. Since in particular some of the funds were received due to COVID why was there no thought to using the funds towards short term program aimed at helping our kids recover from the learning loss due to COVID. I feel like there was some missed opportunity there. I might have been best spent determining where our deficiencies are so that funds can be spent in the most beneficial way moving forward. One of my past frustrations with the school Dept leadership is the inability to admit things aren’t working and a lack of sufficient reflection on why. If you don’t admit there are problems how can you make things better.
Hopefully a change in leadership at the top will help but it’s going to take some time for the new Superintendent to get up to speed. And also I have felt the top wasn’t the only issue,
Newton Highlands Mom, COVID money did go and is going to post-pandemic recovery, most specifically for social and emotional learning I believe because those seem to represent the biggest stumbling blocks of all. Our elementary school has psychology interns and an SEL coach to help students and classroom teachers deal with these new challenges. The existing math coaches are also available to assist classroom teachers.
These investments were paid for in part through supplements to the NPS budget. Those programs are most at risk at a time when they are most essential. I am very happy that NPS took these steps. I think they may be too invisible to survive.
I totally agree with you! I am still so upset that none of the 63 million dollars of Federal ARPA funds were used to help students recover from the pandemic (socially, emotionally, learning losses). They could have provided short term programs with those short term funds to do so. Instead they used many million dollars for roads and Washington Street pilot studies that were unrelated to the pandemic.
@Mike Halle as a parent of older children I was more focused on addressing the academic loss from COVID. I know Newton has had SEL programs in place since my hs kids were in elementary school (& likely prior under a different name). Yes there were increased needs that arose from the social isolation of remote learning but there were critical academic losses as well. I don’t feel like there was as much of a tie into academic loss in using the covid funds. Yes some funds stopped proposed cuts to math and literacy coaches last year which in my opinion should have been the last type of cuts proposed. That was somewhat of an afterthought. There had to be significant push from the City Council, parents etc to get Mayor Fuller to allocate covid relief funds to stop those cuts.
Volumetric pricing for trash removal. The more the City has to pick up, the higher your fees. A charge for garbage by volume, and a fixed price for recycling. You minimize further contract cost to the City while promoting waste reduction.
Barring a successful override, the mayor said NPS needs to tighten its belt. The NPS administration enumerated those cuts in their presentation. I didn’t like those cuts so I voted for the override. A majority of the city disagreed. Elections have consequences. So that’s where we should expect the cuts to happen.
If there are cuts to programs in the next fiscal year Newton’s citizens should be very upset and disappointed. Councilor Gentile wasn’t making things up when he said there were millions of dollars available to spend on upcoming fiscal needs. The City has done quite well with their spending plans over the past few years-so good in fact that there are millions of dollars tucked in various accounts that can be spent in FY 24. Don’t believe any excuses if those funds aren’t spent in FY 24.
The NPS administration has grown while the number of students has plummeted. If we go back to the number of administration positions in 2018, we will save about $1.5M per year. I don’t remember cries of an admin shortage back then.
The SC does not get its hands dirty with budgets. Rather, the administration proposes budgets. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the administration to propose administration cuts.
I agree @Jeffreey Pontiff. The Budget does not come from the School Committee but rather the School Dept. They are relying on the NPS Administrators. This is natural due to the level of detail but it is important that the SC take a critical eye in examining that budget. I think for so long there was a reluctance to do so and information was taken a face value. The SC needs to be a body that take an analytical approach to running our schools. They are the Superintendent’s boss so they need to hold that person and the other Administrators accountable. There needs to be reflection on things that do not go well so that changes can be made. Decisions need to be made on data rather than theories. Personally I would rather see an Administrator cut that a Teacher cut.
From today’s Boston Globe. Hingham, a town with a student population just over 1/3 of NPS is seeking an override. They have a $7.9M deficit, of which $4m is associated with schools. If passed, taxes will increase $751 on the average home ($900k). If it fails, the schools will be cutting staff and services. Also Wakefield just overwhelmingly approved an override for their new $275M high school. 35 yr debt exclusion adding at least $1200 to avg tax bill.
The 2023 Override was basically split 53/47% – whether it was a no for the operational override or yes for the (2) debt exclusions.
Yet generally speaking, most City Council or School Committee votes ends with near unanamous results.
Quite a disparity in representation, no? Are Special Elections the only way voters can find representation in Newton? Let that sink in…
Matt’s comments echo similar recent opinions voiced on social media, namely: “Councilors should represent their constituency, so the Councilors that supported the operational override are out of step”.
I offer two thoughts. Most referenda aren’t choices between two options. Instead, they are affirmation or rejection. “No” is not a plan. It’s the rejection of a proposed plan. It doesn’t imply or rely upon consensus for a path moving forward. In particular, it isn’t affirmation of a “do nothing / status quo” plan.
We can see this result in the debate about school funding in the operational override. Some people were OK with current funding level. Some were just “no” to higher taxes. Some didn’t trust the Mayor / NPS / School Committee. Some thought the money should come from elsewhere. Some wanted more accountability and more funding for schools to solve the deficit.
Candidates can, sadly, be all about opposition to the status quo. But when a person transitions from candidate to leader, at some point they have to be *for* something. They need to work towards an outcome. If they are good, they’ll learn a lot more about services and needs and budget and other competing interests as well as listening to their constituents.
That may bring leaders to support a specific conclusion, plan, or outcome that the majority their constituents do not agree with. Yet, it may still be the best thing to do. There may well be a consensus of Councilors or School Committee members on a “best plan” even when all the options are unpopular with the public because the status quo is untenable or leads to an even worse outcome.
The second part, though, is explaining issues and decisions more clearly. The City can do much better than it currently does. It isn’t that the information is secret, it’s just that complex stuff like budgets and funds and expenses are overwhelming for regular people. It’s hard but possible. For example, more information was shared in an approachable way and discussed during the override discussion, and I think that was very good.
We can do better to help the public become more connected to government. The more connected they feel, the more informed and meaningfully engaged they can be. Some Councilors are very effective at reaching out both ways (educating and listening) to their constituents. We have to find ways to do that even more effectively.
That helps the public develop more informed opinions, bring great ideas and life experiences of their own into the discussion, and reduce the opportunity for any misinterpretation or misinformation to overwhelm the discussion.
@ Mike… and some are opposed to increasing a REGRESSIVE tax that forces middle and lower income taxpayers to take on a greater share of the tax burden for the benefit of the wealthier homeowners. It also raises the barriers to entry to our community to lower income and minority families. Otherwise I agree with your other points.
@Jackson – genuinely curious. You’ve commented many times that the property tax is regressive. I get the theory – property tax is tied to someone’s home value, not their income.
But in practice – are home values not tied to income? Put another way, if you open Redfin, you’ll find homes in Newton from $800K to $4.5MM. Higher value homes are generally bought by higher income people, and vice versa. So a higher income person is more likely to be paying more property tax than a lower income person.
@ Tim. Here is the definition of a “Regressive tax” …..A regressive tax is one where the average tax burden decreases with income. Low-income taxpayers pay a disproportionate share of the tax burden, while middle- and high-income taxpayers shoulder a relatively small tax burden. Another words a flat tax rate like the current property tax takes a higher percentage from the lower income homeowner than the higher income homeowner. I’m not sure if I explained it clearly enough for you to understand but you can google the question “if it’s regressive” and that might make it clearer for you. It’s not the total amount paid it’s what percentage of your income.