The Budget Committee has made significant changes in its procedures for receiving budget data and background information from the School District and the Town. Dates have been established for each financial center to forward written documentation of their budget requests to the Budget Committee. These dates are set one week or more in advance of the meeting with the Budget Committee to discuss those requests. The purpose is to allow time for the Budget Committee members to review the materials and prepare for meaningful discussions at the meeting.
A second change in the Budget Committee procedure has been to schedule more time to review and discuss the Town budget. As the Town grows, the various departments have also grown, each with increasing functions. To allow time for detailed consideration of the budgeting needs for all of the Town departments, additional meetings are scheduled.
The result of these two procedural changes is to extend the overall time period for arriving at recommended budgets. It is not practical to start the process earlier in the fall, since necessary data for the year are far from complete. The result is to delay the final budgets into February.
There has been overwhelming agreement that these new procedures are successful. The Budget Committee members are now prepared in advance for consideration of issues and concerns at meetings with the departments. The departmental representatives are also better prepared for meaningful discussions. And additional meetings with Town departments provide more time to understand and deal with the issues.
The Budget Committee schedule for the 2016 budgets resulted in the Fire Department budgets being finalized in November. The School budget was finalized on January 6. The Town budget will not be finalized until Wednesday, February 10.
The recommended School budget for fiscal year 2016-17 is summarized here. The recommended budget for the Town will be reported in the next issue of the Beacon.
Andover School Budget
The Budget Committee recommends a total budget for the Andover School District for the coming fiscal year 2016-17 of $4,900,864, up $126,399 (2.6%) over the current year’s budget. This includes an operating budget of $4,862,300, plus warrant articles for an additional $48,564.
A significant increase in the operating budget is for transportation. The previous fiscal year 2015-16 was the first year of a new five-year bus contract. The transportation appropriation for that year showed an increase over 2014-15 by $94,523. The proposed appropriation for the coming year 2016-17 shows a further increase by $64,240.
The Alternative Transportation Study was funded by last year’s appropriation of $10,000 and has the goal of determining the most cost-effective way to provide transportation for our students. This study is now under way, and preliminary results are expected to be available by the time of the School District Meeting.
Another significant increase is for wages and benefits for Special Education staff, this year up by $63,838. There is little room for negotiation on Special Education costs, since the programs are driven by procedures and regulations that are beyond our control.
A new two-year contract has been negotiated with the teachers’ union. A warrant article on the School District warrant calls for approval of the cost items in this agreement. The teachers agreed to change from an HMO to a “Consumer Driven High Deductible Plan” for health insurance, and the savings there offset almost all the salary increases in the first year of the contract. Therefore, the warrant article approving the teachers’ new two-year contract includes an appropriation of only $3,564 for the first year’s costs.
Another warrant article proposes adding $10,000 to the High School Tuition Expendable Trust Fund, bringing that fund up to $60,000 plus interest. A third warrant article proposes adding $25,000 to the Special Education Expendable Trust Fund, bringing that fund up to $100,000 plus interest. These expenses were matched by similar warrant articles voted in the previous year’s budget.
The recommended appropriation for the coming year is up $126,399 over last year’s appropriation. If approved by the School District Meeting, the amount to be raised by taxes would go up by the same amount. The tax rate would go up from last year’s rate of $12.99 by approximately $0.50 to $13.49.
Any changes in revenues, including changes in the amount of available unexpended surplus (last year’s amount was an unprecedented $459,757) will also have a direct effect on the tax rate and cannot be estimated this early in the fiscal year.