Amherst By The Numbers

$189 A Year

2009-06-17T09:04:00.003-04:00

The amount of additional property tax on an average home (valued at $306,000) in Northampton following the passing of a $2 million dollar override yesterday. Of the 9,335 residents who voted, 60% approved the override which passed in 11 of 14 wards. More details of the election can be found at masslive and for those who are interested in the methods behind the scenes of the successful campaign, check out voteyesnorthampton.

The Facilitation of Community Choices Committee, in its presentation to the community, illustrated this same additional tax increase for Amherst residents for three potential override levels ranging from $1 million to $3 million. The average assessment in Amherst is higher than that of Northampton ($332,500 as of July 2008) and the tax rate is higher ($15.82 compared to $11.48 for Northampton), so the average additional tax burden in Amherst would be greater. For Amherst, if there were the same $2 million override in FY10 as Northampton, that would mean an additional $319 per year in property taxes for a resident with a house assessed at $332,500.

Since it is being quoted frequently in Town Meeting these days, I thought I would excerpt the section on overrides from the FCCC report here:

The Committee recognizes that an override will probably be necessary at some point in the next 5 years to sustain even the most essential school and municipal services. All members agree that an override will not solve Amherst’s long-term budget gap and substantial cutbacks will be necessary regardless. Committee members hold a range of views regarding the timing of an override and the criteria that must be met before considering an override. Some members are against seeking an override vote for the FY2010 budget because they fear it would be an excuse to postpone difficult budget decisions. Others would favor keeping that option open if State aid decreases significantly. Others think an FY2010 override is necessary to preserve essential services while town leaders develop a restructuring plan. We recommend that if an override is put forward, a menu override approach be used to allow voters a choice of where to direct the revenues.

It will be interesting to see whether the vote in Northampton increases interest in a FY10 override for Amherst or whether Town Meeting members and others will follow the recommendations of the Finance Committee and vote the budget as it has been proposed.

$34,704

2009-06-10T12:25:00.002-04:00

The difference between the library budget suggested by the Library Trustees ($2,128,288) and that recommended by the Finance Committee ($2,093,584). According to the Finance Committee Report to Town Meeting, Part II, the Finance Committee makes this recommendation in an attempt to more equally share the budget reductions among all budget areas. This would represent a -1.5% decrease in support for the library budget and compares to the -1.4% reduction to the municipal budget, -1.5% reduction to the elementary school budget, and -8.9% reduction to the capital budget. The regional budget is more complicated due to our regional agreement and varying assessments by town; the total regional budget is being reduced by 1.2% although the Amherst assessment is going to be increased by 1.4% (still less than the originally recommended 3.7% increase).

If Town Meeting votes the Finance Committee budget for the library, this will mean that the library will fail to meet Massachusetts' Municipal Appropriation Requirement. This requirement requires cities and towns to fund their libraries at 2.5% above the average of the preceding three years’ municipal appropriations in order for the libraries to be certified and to continue receiving state aid. If their funding falls below that level, the library may lose its certification. According to the handout prepared for Town Meeting by the library trustees, this could mean the loss of state aid (~$70,000 for Amherst), the loss of inter-library loan and other reciprocal services with certified libraries in other towns, and the inability for the library to apply for grants under the Library Services and Technology Act program (loss of $11,200 for ESL and Spanish programs).

It is apparently possibly, however, for apply for a waiver by showing municipal financial hardship (we definitely have that criterion met!) and demonstrating that the library is not taking a disproportionate share of the budget cuts (again, that criterion met). The vast majority of municipalities seeking a waiver, including nearby Northampton, have had them granted.

Town Meeting is going to have to vote on this budget and despite my sympathy for the library's current situation, I have to trust the Finance Committee and vote for their recommendation. If nothing else, the library has not been seen--during this long budget season--as actively looking for serious restructuring the way our other budget areas have been. Perhaps this is just perception, but when I read "in the Library Trustees' proposed budget, there would be 25.2 FTEs, unchanged from FY 09. As of this writing, library staff had not determined how to reduce their budget to meet the Finance Committee's recommended budget" in the Finance Committee report, it bothers me. Especially when we are seeing a reduction of 1.5 FTE for the municipal budget (and substantial changes in funding levels for many areas), a decrease of 23 FTE for the elementary schools (including the loss of 12.25 FTE teachers and the closing of one school), and a decrease of 27.5 FTE for the regional schools (including 17 FTE teachers and the elimination of two academic teams in the middle school).

In the report from the Facilitation of Community Choices Committee, the public made various comments about the library budget, and the most commonly-cited suggestion was "close the branch libraries." Now I know that doing so would not change the math in the equation relating to the Appropriation Requirement, but the fact that that is not even on the table for discussion (although closing an elementary school was) also bothers me. Especially when Bonne Isman, the Library Director, told the FCCC that if the budget for FY10 were funded at or below level services, closing one or more of the branch libraries would be a possibilty for restructuring.

I have personally used both branch libraries and really appreciate them and understand that they contribute to community in those areas, but I have also been to Marks Meadow and appreciate that it contributed to that community (but still supported its closing due to financial and enrollment reasons). It may be that the town would really save virtually no money by closing one or more of the branch libraries, but as a taxpayer and member of Town Meeting, I would at least like to see some serious discussion of this by the library trustees, including an estimate of cost savings for the closing of each branch. If nothing else, opening this discussion might help the community see the library as more of a "team player" in this difficult budget season.

Numbers For A Reader

2009-06-08T12:47:00.002-04:00

Over the weekend I received an email from a reader who had a few questions about the recently-announced cuts to the regional school budget. This reader said:

"I keep thinking that if the middle schools goes from 6 teams to 4, that means a third of the middle school team teachers are being cut. I'm assuming 4 teachers per team, 24 team teachers and 8 of 24 equals a third cut. Am I wrong? Also wondering if they plan to add more SPED or building blocks teachers next year how that skews the regular ed teachers: special needs percentages of the budget. It seems like it would really change the numbers. Perhaps you can investigate and post in your blog? If arms is cutting a third of its regular ed teacher, that's headline news I would think."

So, I looked into it. I reviewed the committee level budget (dated June 2, 2009), made a few calls, and wanted to follow up as requested. More information on the cuts can also be found on Catherine Sanderson's School Committe blog entry about the June 2 meeting.

To start off, we have to figure out what is considered "team" at the middle school and what is not. Next year, team is proposed to be science, social studies, English, and exploratory. Math may or may not be team next year but we can run the numbers either way. There are currently 6 teams at ARMS, giving us either 24 team teachers or 30 team teachers (if you count math). That is our baseline.

Under the currently-proposed cuts, ARMS is slated to lose five academic teachers (according to my sources, these will be two science teachers, two social studies teachers, and one English teacher) and 2 exploratory teachers for a net loss of 7 team teachers. Next year the middle school will then be down to either 17 team teachers or 23 team teachers (if you count math). This represents a reduction of 29.2% or 23.3% (with math). The reader above is right...this is a big reduction.

Now on to the second part of the question. A follow-up contact revealed that the referred to "building blocks" was really referencing the Bridges program at ARMS. That program currently has two FTE teachers listed and has 8 students. The originally-proposed FY10 budget for the region listed the addition of two teachers for Bridges which would have doubled that number. The latest version of the budget lists only one additional teacher for Bridges but one of the School Committee meetings I attended recently explained that by saying that although they were still hiring two additional teachers for Bridges, one was being funded through stimulus money so does not appear as a budget addition. Still, the reader is correct again...the regular education seems to be taking a proportionally greater cut to its teachers.

Finally, the reader wonders about percentage of budget for regular education versus special education. To make things simple, I only looked at the "teachers" line in each (there is a third line which is ELL teachers that is not considered here) since the original question was specifically about teachers. In FY09, 75.7% of the regular and special education teacher budget was spent on regular education teachers. Under the committee-level budget before additions and subtractions (if I understand the document correctly), regular education teachers make up 76.1% of that same area of the budget. After the cuts and additions, however, regular education teachers make up only 74.5% of the budget (counting only one of the Bridges teachers). So yes, those proportional additions and subtractions do change the proportion of the budget spent on regular education teachers.

As to why this is not headline news, I am not sure. But as the parent of a rising seventh-grader, facing class sizes of 27, you can bet it is headline news in our household.

$62,552

2009-06-03T15:22:00.003-04:00

According to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, this is the average salary of a teacher in the Amherst-Pelham regional district in 2008. The average salary of a teacher in the Amherst elementary district is $59,376. Again, according to the Commonwealth. In recent budget discussions of the School Committee, an average salary of $54,000 was used and I am not sure if our administration calculates average salary differently than the Commonwealth (possible) or if there is another explanation.

Either way, the salaries of our teachers compare favorably to the salaries of teachers in other local districts although they are lower than the state average (which includes salaries of those teaching in the more expensive eastern part of Massachusetts). Of the local districts I looked at, Amherst-Pelham teachers had the highest salaries followed by Pelham and then by Amherst. Lowest among these districts were Pioneer (the only district below $50,000), Hatfield, and Hadley.

If you look at the salary data in terms of enrollment (i.e. salary per student), the top districts are Amherst (at $6,058 per student), Pelham ($5,615), Leverett ($5,332), and Amherst-Pelham ($5,312). Lowest were Belchertown, Pioneer, and Hadley (all below $4,000 per student).

The current teachers' contract has a Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) raise of 3.5% and the latest article on the topic in the Gazette indicates that another 50% of teachers are also receiving a 4% "step" raise (which would apparently bring the total raise for those individuals to 7.5%). Thus, a rough calculation of the average salary for Amherst-Pelham teachers next year would be $64,741 (without a step raise). The average salary for an Amherst teacher would be $61,454 (again, without a step raise).

I am certainly not questioning the value of teachers or their right to earn a living wage. I am also not sure how I feel about the town/schools going back on a previously-negotiated contract. I did, however, want to take a more general look at the comparative salaries in our area to see whether or not giving up a COLA raise this next year would put our teachers at the lower end of the local salary spectrum. From what I have seen, it would not.

I am looking forward to hearing more from the teachers' union and from the School Committee about the issue of revisiting the contract. It is possible for some flexible and creative solutions that might keep everyone relatively happy (after all, who is really going to be truly happy with all these cuts?). For example, would a 1% raise (or 2%) be a good compromise? Or for those receiving a step increase to give up COLA raises so everyone is still getting some sort of raise? This could be a very interesting few weeks before Town Meeting resumes.

7PM

2009-05-19T11:21:00.002-04:00

Tonight. High School library. The long-awaited School Committee vote on whether or not Marks Meadow will be closed at the end of the 2010-2011 school year. At stake is the $673,000 per year in savings estimated with the closure of the school. (First year savings will be $125,000 less due to one-time moving costs and there is apparently a transportation increase of $16,000.) Also at stake is the future of a school which has many vocal supporters (see the op-ed section of last week's Bulletin for a sample).

The plot apparently thickened Monday with the addition of negotiations with UMass about the future of the building if it does close (Superintendent Geryk recommends moving the two alternative high schools to the building), or alternatively, the payment by UMass for the education of the approximately 50 students per year from UMass who receive a public school education in Amherst tax-free. The article in the Gazette suggests that this payment in lieu of taxes would potentially generate between $675,000 and $725,000 annually for our schools.

Regardless of whether this payment option is even feasible given the financial situation at UMass or whether or not the Marks Meadow building could be used for something else, I still think that closing Marks Meadow is the fiscally responsible decision, is in line with our enrollment projections, and fits within the current long-term strategic plan for our elementary schools. Yes, this does mean a huge change for our entire community (especially since the closure of Marks Meadow will result in many children being redistricted to other elementary schools--not just the students currently at Marks Meadow), but it is a necessary change. Especially since the Finance Committee has stated the possibility of using reserve funds "to implement bona fide plans to move toward models of service provision that would provide net savings to the town in the future while providing acceptable levels of service. Since we feel that moving in this direction is extremely important for the long-term sustainability of services, if reserves are to be used, we encourage targeted use of reserves to aid the process of transitioning to new models that reasonable analysis indicates have a likelihood of providing future cost savings, but might have some costs associated with a transition, or require a reasonable and finite time to implement." Thus, if the School Committee votes tonight to close Marks Meadow, the Finance Committe might recommend the use of reserve funds to cover some of the budget deficit for our elementary schools this year. Without that, we are facing, minimally, a net $1.2 million less for our schools (based on the Tier 2 budget passed by the School Committee).

Ultimately, though, I think the worst thing for our schools and for our town would be for the School Committee to delay this vote beyond tonight. Whether Marks Meadow is to be closed or whether it will remain open and the budget shortfall will have to be made up somewhere else, our students, our teachers, and our communities need to have some resolution of this issue so everyone can move on to planning how to implement the results of the decision. No matter which way it goes. Come out tonight and see what happens...and urge the School Committee to be decisive tonight.

$7,000

2009-05-12T15:39:00.005-04:00

The amount of additional money that will now be in reserve CPA funds following the defeat of Part K of Article 18; proposed repairs to the slate roof of the North Congregational Church. Most of the arguments against this item seemed to stem either from the lack of separation of church and state this might represent as well as a general discomfort with using public CPA funds for maintenance on what is a privately-held building.

This was the only part of Article 18 (total appropriation $344,800) to be defeated. Other hotly-debated parts were E, J, and L. Part E (West Cemetery Landscape Improvement for $20,000) passed by a standing vote of 128 to 51. Part J (Civil War Tablets--Phase I: Conservation, Engineering & Design, Installation and Interpretation) passed on a tally vote of 91 to 84. Part L (Historic Signs (Writers' Walk--Dickinson, Frost, Francis, etc) passed on a tally vote of 95 to 70. (Note the decrease in numbers of Town Meeting members voting/present as the night wore on...and on...and on.)

I am new to Town Meeting but it was clear to me that Historic Preservation was taking a fair bit of heat for using a lot of CPA money this year. Even though both the Community Preservation Act Committee and the Historical Commission produced very thorough information on all projects (I thought). There were, however, a number of minority reports (Barbaret and Streeter as well as Morales and O'Connor) which clearly opened the discussion. In comparison, Articles 19 and 20, both dealing with Open Space passed with no problem (total appropriation for both articles was $225,000 and also authorizes the raising of an additional $380,000 to fund the purchase of land/conservation restriction on the Olendzki property on Station Road).

A good discussion about this article got going on one of the TM lists and I wondered if the only other alternative to spending the money on these projects was to bank it instead, and indeed that did seem to be the case. There were, for example, no additional proposals that would have gone unfunded this year due to the funding of any of the parts of Article 18. There was a lot of discussion about the relatively little CPA money being spent this year on affordable housing, but according to the CPAC, there were no proposals brought forth this year that were not funded. In addition, there is already an available budget for affordable housing of $350,077.

In the end, I voted in support of all parts of Article 18 because I was not presented with convincing arguments about what the money would better be used for (no one offered a concrete reason why more should be put in reserve rather than less except maybe to cover "proposals that come up later" but I thought they could be brought forward the following year). I also saw no real barriers to the much-needed economic development in any of these proposals, which is another reason I would have voted against something. In fact, Article 20 worried me more on that aspect but no one seemed at all concerned about that Article. A member next to me, while ripping out her tally vote, said, "I don't know why we are paying for this while our schools are in such bad shape." I responded, "I do agree with you that I wish our schools had more money but this money cannot go toward the schools so I can't think of it that way." It was a long night of hard-fought victories for the CPAC.

Two For $380,000

2009-05-08T11:04:00.003-04:00

The apparent total cost to purchase the two portable classrooms that are not scheduled for use next year (or in subsequent years) for grade-specific classroom use. On October 15, 2007, the Select Board voted 4-0 (with one abstention) to support Article 5 on that fall's Town Meeting Warrant. This Article called for the appropriation of $195,000 (in addition to the $80,000 previously appropriated) for the purchase of two modular (aka portable) classrooms for Marks Meadow. Voting in support of this Article were current SB members Brewer and Weiss.

At the October 17, 2007 School Committee meeting, the Marks Meadow School Improvement Plan was presented and included the mention of these two proposed modular classrooms. At the time, SC member Churchill "noted that the School Committee needs to look hard at whether we need to add two or four modular classrooms, understanding that there is a financial component to be considered." Fortunately, the School Committee did NOT decide to follow up on that suggestion and recommend the purchase of four modular classrooms!

Town Meeting passed Article 5 by 2/3 vote on November 5, 2007:
ARTICLE 5. Capital – Mark’s Meadow Portable Classrooms (Joint Capital Planning Committee) VOTED by a declared two-thirds that the sum of $195,000 be and hereby is appropriated to pay costs of purchasing portable classrooms for the use of the School Department and for the payment of all other costs incidental and related thereto, which amount shall be expended in addition to the $80,000 previously appropriated for this purpose, and that to meet this appropriation, the Treasurer, with the approval of the Select Board, is hereby authorized to borrow said amount under and pursuant to Chapter 44, Section 7(9) of the General Laws, or pursuant to any other enabling authority, and to issue bonds or notes of the Town therefor. Action taken on 11/5/07.

On May 12, 2008, Town Meeting further appropriated another $105,000 toward the purchase of these modular classrooms as brought forth in Article 17, Part C:
C. VOTED by a declared two-thirds to amend the actions taken under Article 5 of the Special Town Meeting held on November 5, 2007, and appropriate $105,000 to pay costs of purchasing portable classrooms for the use of the School Department and for the payment of all other costs incidental and related thereto, which amount shall be expended in addition to the $195,000 previously appropriated for this purpose, and to meet this appropriation, the Treasurer, with the approval of the Select Board, is hereby authorized to borrow said amount under and pursuant to Chapter 44, Section 7(9) of the General Laws, or pursuant to any other enabling authority, and to issue bonds or notes of the Town therefore. Action taken 5/19/2008.

This brought the total cost to purchase the modular classrooms to $380,000 appropriated by Town Meeting. These modular classrooms were delivered in October 2008 but are not currently used as grade-specific classrooms.

Under the current projections, Marks Meadow will use only 9 of the available 10 classrooms in the main building for grade-specific classes next year. If Marks Meadow is closed following the 2009-2010 school year, apparently, there will still be no need to use these two modular classrooms on another school campus. According to the Elementary Reorganization materials discussed in recent forums, "We project that we will be able to contain all our classrooms within Crocker Farm, Fort River and Wildwood Schools without use of the modulars. If it is decided that the modulars must be moved, the net Year 1 savings will be reduced to approximately $392,000. Consideration may also be given to selling the modulars." I just hope they are able to recoup a significant portion of this $380,000 if they do sell the modulars. I further hope that more attention will be paid to enrollment projections by our decision-makers in the future.

Two

2009-05-01T13:20:00.006-04:00

UPDATE May 5: The two probable cases of H1N1 (swine) flu sent from Amherst College to the CDC for testing have been confirmed. All possible cases of flu at the College have already been treated as if they did have H1N1, so no further preventive measures are being instituted by the College at this time and all students are apparently doing well.
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Probable cases of H1N1 (swine) flu reported at Amherst College late Thursday night, according to the official statement. In addition, six additional students with flu-like symptoms are being treated as suspected cases, including two new cases this morning. Fortunately, none of the cases are serious and the students are isolated and responding to treatment.

Because these cases at Amherst College have not yet been confirmed, they are not yet registered on the CDC H1N1 Surveillance web site which still lists Massachusetts with two confirmed cases (the Lowell cases). Only once cases are confirmed by one of the few laboratories capable of processing the samples are they reported as such.

Meanwhile, the U.S. labs processing the growing influx of samples from suspected cases are apparently unable to keep up with demand. Some areas already hit with the virus, including New York City, are now not testing all suspected cases but just treating them as if they were H1N1 (swine) flu. This enables timely treatment but will result in a underestimate of flu cases reported if only laboratory-confirmed cases are reported.

In Mexico, for example, according to the WHO, there have been 156 confirmed cases and 9 deaths. Compared to the 141 confirmed cases and 1 death in the U.S. Only looking at those numbers would lead someone to believe that the outbreak in the U.S. was almost as bad as the outbreak in Mexico. According to a variety of other reports, however, Mexico has seen over 2,000 cases of this flu with as many as 150 deaths and the country has essentially been shut down in an attempt to stem the tide of the disease.

A poll on MSNBC asks "if the swine flu strain spread to your town, would you be willing to stay home?" At this point, 69.8% of respondents said "Absolutely, if it would keep me and my family safe." I wonder if 69.8% of Amherst stayed home today...

No Numbers...

2009-04-29T08:55:00.002-04:00

...just a message from our interim Superintendent Maria Geryk, read last night at the Regional School Committee meeting. According to her statement, no one in the administration will follow up on or act upon any comments posted anonymously on blogs. She did not give any specifics but did mention "some concerns" that had been raised in blog comments and wanted to let people know that anonymously posted concerns would not be investigated. Thus, as it might pertain to this blog, for example, those of you who have written in with comments concerning Building Blocks cannot expect any action to be taken based on your comments (or, presumably, the fact that I emailed the School Committee and Superintendent Geryk about said comments). Instead, she said the administration would welcome questions and concerns directly from the public.

Kathleen Anderson did ask our Superintendent why she is allowing staff members to complete an anonymous survey but is not following up on anonymous concerns by the general public. Superintendent Geryk clarified, saying that the staff members were only being asked to comment on the current budget process. In addition, members of the public were welcome to submit comments through the on-line suggestion box.

I checked the ARPS web site and there is the ability to submit anonymous comments about the budget. The form does ask for name and email address although it doesn't seem as if those fields are required for submission. I could not find any other anonymous suggestion box on the web site but imagine if people did submit non-budget-related concerns via this venue, they might be addressed. People with concerns can also email both the Superintendent (GerykM@arps.org) and the School Committee (schoolcommittee@arps.org) although that will not necessarily be anonymous.

$380,000

2009-04-24T13:46:00.002-04:00

The amount of money above and beyond available CPA funds that Town Meeting is being asked to appropriate to purchase land/conservation restriction to preserve open space. Being new at reviewing the Warrant with a view toward having to vote on each article, I was initially confused about this item. In Article 20, part B in the section labeled 2) it states "raise, borrow and/or appropriate from available funds an additional $380,000 for the acquisition of said parcel of land and the conservation restriction, and to meet such appropriation with funds transferred and/or borrowed in accordance with M.G.L. c. 44B, the Community Preservation Act" This part B follows part A which states "To see if the Town will appropriate $150,000 from the Community Preservation Fund annual revenues or available funds for the purchase of land for open space purposes in South Amherst (Map 20D-51)."

After reading the very informative 2009 CPAC Report to Town Meeting, I understand more. The CPA fund will have $677,267 available in FY10. Of that amount, the CPAC is recommending the appropriation of $653,574 to be spent in FY10. $569,800 of that is requested in Warrant Articles 18, 19, and 20 Part A and another $83,774 goes to debt service on Plum Brook (still not available for play) and for the Town Hall masonry work. This report also contains helpful information that reminds us that 10% of new funds have to be spent each on affordable housing, historic preservation, and open space, has a map of the areas under consideration in Articles 19 and 20, and describes all projects in detail. It also mentions that Amherst only saw a 29% in matching funds from the Commonwealth in FY10. It does not, however, mention this additional $380,000.

Article 18 requests the appropriation of $344,800 from the Community Preservation Fund for a variety of projects, most of which fall under the category "historic preservation" and each project is described in the CPAC report. Article 19 requests the appropriation of $75,000 from the Community Preservation Fund for "the purchase of a Conservation Restriction in South Amherst(Map 23B, Parcel 45)."

The only related Article that is not well-defined is Article 20 which seems to require money from funds other than the Community Preservation Fund. Part B does go on to indicate possible methods of obtaining said money ("authorize the Treasurer, with the approval of the Select Board, to issue any bonds or notes that may be necessary for that purpose, as authorized by M.G.L. Chapter 44, or any other enabling authority"). I see that the April 27th Select Board meeting will include a discussion on their position on each of the articles and I look forward to the discussion of Article 20 so I can learn more.

23,000

2009-04-21T06:30:00.003-04:00

The number of daffodil bulbs planted in Amherst for the town's 250th anniversary celebration. Planted last fall, they are now blooming all around town and look amazing! This effort coordinated volunteers from UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture, local landscapers, and many private citizens. Featured on the town common, parks, and countless other locations around town, the three varieties of daffodils planted are now brightening up the spring landscape. Of all the activities planned for the 250th anniversary celebration, this will be the one most available to all and the most long-lasting. Even if you don't have time to attend any of the anniversary talks, scavenger hunts, or even go to the parade, everyone in town will probably drive or walk by at least one patch of blooming daffodils this May. Poisonous to squirrels and chimpmunks--often known to eat other spring bulbs such as tulips--daffodils will continue to multiply and bloom every year unless they are dug up. Many of the daffodils planted in October will outlive the volunteers who planted them and some might even be around for the 300th anniversary celebration! That is what I call a great investment. Thank you, Dolly Jolly, for dreaming up this fantastic legacy!

$15,000

2009-04-17T11:32:00.003-04:00

The housing/travel allowance granted to our new Superintendent, Alberto Rodriguez, in FY10 and FY11. Not only excessive given our budgetary problems, but also confusing. Does it take two years to move? Does it cost $30,000 to move from Miami to Amherst? Well, I looked into that.

Based on Dr. Rodriguez's evening presentation during his candidacy, I learned that he has two adult children. Given that, I figured that his move might be easier/cheaper than moving a family with younger children who had no choice but to move along with their parents. Picking an "average" home of 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, I asked a few national relocation companies for quotes on moving from Miami to Amherst this June. The top figure so far? $7,664 This includes full packing by the moving company and insurance for replacement value of items. True, Dr. Rodriguez could be moving from a 5bd 4ba home to a 5bd 4ba home and his belongings could include a grand piano, but even so, I find it difficult to believe that it will cost him $15,000 to move. Or rather $30,000 over two years to complete said move.

I would like to hear more from the School Committee about the deliberation over this $15,000 add-on to his salary and how this $15,000 will be administered. Will he need to submit receipts to receive reimbursement for moving or will he just receive a lump sum per year? If he needs to submit receipts, exactly what will and will not be deemed acceptable? For example, if he and his wife dine every night at five-star restaurants on their drive up to Amherst, will we be reimbursing him for that? I would just like some answers.

I also want to point out that the lengthy "justification" of this salary and benefits package clearly states early on that "It does not make sense to compare former superintendent Hochman’s FY08 salary to the one negotiated with Dr. Rodriguez two years later," in order to justify the higher salary for Dr. Rodriguez (the subject for another post), yet later in the press release when discussing this $15,000 it states "This is about the same dollar amount that Dr. Hochman received in additional benefits." Why is it OK to compare to Dr. Hochman for the "additional benefits" yet not for the salary? I am hoping that the minutes of the relevant Executive Sessions of the School Committee are released soon so we can all have answers to these questions.

As it stands, Dr. Rodriguez will be earning $173,000 in FY10 and $178,530 in FY11 (assuming he receives the same 3.5% raise as his employees). I find it hard to justify these figures given the fact that our schools are facing potential closure, loss of valuable programs, and lay-offs of teachers.

Tier 3

2009-04-15T08:56:00.002-04:00

According to ARPS Director of Finance and Operations Rob Detweiler, who works with budget numbers every day, Tier 3 funding (aka "worst case scenario") is the BEST our school districts can expect next fiscal year and the reality is probably even worse. For the Amherst elementary schools FY10 budget projections as of March 17, Tier 3 cuts mean reducing the budget by $1.9 million. Tier 2 cuts would reduce the budget by $1.3 million and Tier 1 cuts would reduce the budget by $800,000. Under this proposal, Tier 3 cuts would mean losing the instrumental music program, 7.2 FTE worth of intervention teachers, 6 FTE classroom teachers, after school homework clubs, the science coordinator, and many other programs and services. Even the proposed closing of Marks Meadow would only save ~$700,000 (without the cost of potentially moving the portables) and this closing, if approved by the School Committee, would not take effect until FY11. So some serious cuts are going to have to be made to our elementary schools in this upcoming fiscal year.

Despite this prediction of Tier 3, or worse, available revenue, our Regional School Committe on April 7, voted a Tier 1 level budget. Even though Rob Detweiler, at that meeting--before he had seen the meagre $62,502 awarded to Amherst-Pelham in Round 3 of the Governor's education stimulus program--also warned that, at that point, we were "just hovering above a Tier 3 budget." A Tier 1 budget at the regional level represents $1.3 million in cuts, a Tier 2 budget represents $1.7 million in cuts, and a Tier 3 budget represents $2.1 million in cuts.

If there is only enough revenue to support a Tier 3 budget, why did the Regional School Committee approve a Tier 1 budget?! Part of the reason may lie in the regional district agreement, whereby if three of the towns approve a budget, the fourth town is obliged to adopt that budget as well. And at the April 7 meeting, Shutesbury representative Marianne Jorgensen stated that Shutesbury planned to vote for the Tier 1 budget and the implication was that Pelham and Leverett were also prepared to do so. If that did happen, Amherst would then have to abide by that budget level.

Where does the Regional School Committee think the Tier 1 money is going to come from? The difference between a Tier 1 budget and a Tier 3 budget is $800,000. In other words, a lot of money. Perhaps the Regional School Committee is hoping that the town of Amherst (and potentially the other three towns) will move some of the money from the already-reduced municipal budget (i.e. police, fire, DPW, LSSE, etc) to the regional schools? Or that money will be moved from the already-reduced elementary school budget? Possibily they are hoping for a menu override to support the regional schools to be voted on in some sort of special election? Or that the Finance Committe and Town Meeting might approve the use of reserve funds to support this Tier 1 budget? I am not sure, but after the meeting last night when Rob Detweiler downgraded his estimate of available revenue to "Tier 3 or slightly above" to "possibly worse than Tier 3," that decision to vote the Tier 1 budget at the regional level seems even more ill-advised.

2002

2009-04-10T11:42:00.007-04:00

Year in which Town Meeting first heard the proposal to fund soccer fields at Plum Brook Recreation Area off Potwine Road. Three separate votes at three Town Meetings were needed to approve the funding for the project...$500,000 of which was to be borrowed and repaid through Community Preservation Act funds. According to the Annual Town Report, in 2004, the Recreation Area received clearance for its plans from both the Amherst Conservation Commission and the Amherst Planning Board. Funding for Plum Brook was again hotly contested in 2005. A later referendum to rescind this funding source was rejected by Town Meeting on June 15, 2005 and later by voters in the September 27, 2005 election.

Initially projected to be completed by Spring 2006, by June 2006, the project had reached a "standstill" due to weather. At that point, LSSE Director Linda Chalfant predicted that the fields would be ready by Fall 2006. When our Town Manager, Larry Shaffer, arrived on the scene in July 2006, he set up weekly on-site meetings at Plum Brook and assigned the town engineer to oversee the project. Still not ready by summer 2007, delays were now blamed on inability to grow grass in time. By summer 2008, the grass was there but apparently crabgrass, so the new completion date was said to be Fall 2009. Also in 2008, a decision involving Newton raised the question of whether or not Amherst could legitimately use Community Preservation Act funds in this way, but ultimately, Town Counsel concluded that Amherst's use of CPA funds in this way was legitimate. Interestingly, the Bulletin article that covered this story on December 5, 2008 lists the project as "already complete." The Amherst Youth Soccer Association web site still optimistically proclaims "Work is progressing at Plum Brook. Fields are not expected to be ready for play until Spring of 2009."

It is now Spring 2009 and my daughter's soccer team, along with many others in town, will be playing their entire spring season on the road due to lack of fields in Amherst. That's right...fifteen games away. Oh, they are listed as the home team for seven of them, and for anyone interested in catching the girls at "home", the games will be played in Ludlow, East Longmeadow, Agawam, Wilbraham, Chicopee, and Belchertown.

One

2009-04-08T06:47:00.002-04:00

The number of librarians currently on the cut list for the middle school under the Regional budget. It might not seem so bad (and was certainly skimmed over in the presentation--MS, one librarian, $54,000) until you realize that the middle school currently HAS only one librarian! So yes, next year our middle school (enrollment ~550) will have no librarian.

When questioned about this by a parent, the Superintendent reiterated that these cuts were proposed by the building administration and this library position was discussed and continued to remain on the cuts list. It was further implied that because "the community" wanted to retain world languages at the middle school, the librarian was being cut. Now I was all for retaining world languages at the middle school (although if they had to be reduced to a few choices I could have lived with that even though I would have felt bad for the ~30 kids who took German and Russian in the seventh grade and thus wouldn't be able to continue that language in the eighth grade) but at the expense of the librarian?

Superintendent Geryk is right, these are hard choices and something must go. But is there really that much fat in the middle school that it can afford a cut like this? That reflects a comment from a staff member from the middle school who pointed out that in the Tier 1 cuts, there is the elimination of the middle school librarian as well as the elimination of two assistant coaches for varsity sports in the high school. She pointed out that those are very different things and I would agree.

Frankly, I think the School Committee and our administration needs to take a good hard look at what the core values of our schools and prioritize them above all others. For example, do we need so many electives in the high school? The ARHS staff directory lists five staff members in Family and Consumer Science and the department web site lists 10 different Family and Consumer Science courses. This is just my opinion, but I would say that a librarian is more of a core educational value than "Clothing and Textiles I" or "ProStart Culinary Arts II." Which I am sure are interesting and engaging courses, but as Superintendent Geryk said, hard choices must be made. Perhaps the administration and the School Committee could start with electives, retaining the core academic mission of both our middle and our high schools.

14.2%

2009-04-06T15:00:00.003-04:00

The proportion of Amherst-Pelham Regional special education students who are educated outside the district. This, according to Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education profile, which lists the educational environment of all students on IEPs. This compares to the 6.7% of special education students state-wide who are educated outside the district. I looked up this number because I have heard so often recently that the reason we have so many substantially separate programs for some special education students in Amherst is that it saves money to educate them within the district, rather than elsewhere. Which may be the case but even with these programs, it looks like we are sending a lot of our regional students elsewhere. At the elementary level, only 0.5% of our special education students are educated out of district.

As always, numbers like these make me curious about our surrounding school districts. And, as always, it is difficult to compare since Amherst is an elementary-only district and Amherst-Pelham is a 7-12 district only. So the proportions for all the local K-12 districts might not be comparable. But if you combine the number of special ed students in both Amherst-Pelham and Amherst in each educational environment, the total percent K-12 that is educated out of district is 9.1%. Still above the state average and higher than all K-12 districts except Hatfield (with only 67 special ed students total in 2007-2008).

When comparing the elementary-only districts, Amherst looks to be on the low end of the other local districts. Pelham, Shutesbury, and Sunderland all have zero students educated out-of-district. Of Whately's 12 special education students, 16.7% were educated out-of-district (the only district in the local area higher than Amherst-Pelham's 14.2%). When comparing the two other regional districts in the area, Amherst-Pelham is similar to Frontier's 13.9% but much higher than Pioneer's 2.2%.

Inclusion has often been cited as a goal of special education in Amherst, and 78.0% of special education students in Amherst-Pelham are classified as either "full" or "partial" inclusion with respect to their educational environment. This compares to 78.2% state-wide. And, in fact, the proportion of Amherst and Amherst-Pelham students who are educated "substantially separately" (8.6% and 7.7%, respectively) are lower than the state-wide proportion of 15.1%. The real outlier is the 14.2% of our regional students who are being educated out-of-district at a time where more money is being spent on specialized programs, specifically designed to keep students in-district. I hope our proposed Special Education Task Force takes a look at whether or not these additional funds do, indeed, decrease the percent of special education students who are educated out-of-district as well as whether or not keeping those students in-district really does save money.

145

2009-04-01T10:38:00.002-04:00

The number of votes I received in yesterday's election for my first-ever run for Town Meeting. This was enough to tie me for fifth place in the contested Precinct 6 election where the top 8 of 12 candidates won seats. Now begins the task of actually SERVING on Town Meeting!

Perhaps the fact that our Precinct's TM seats were contested accounts for the relatively high voter turnout in our Precinct--17.03%, second only to Precinct 8 with 17.30%. Overall voter turnout was a disappointing low 12.73%.

The low turnout was especially disappointing considering that there were two open (and contested) seats for School Committee open. The School Committee makes decisions about the school budgets which, in turn, represent the majority of the money spent in the town of Amherst. Given this, you would think more people would have been interested in this race and invested enough in the outcome of the election to get out and vote! Apparently not. But we will be welcoming two new School Committe members--Irv Rhodes and Steve Rivkin--into the hot seats at the next School Committee meeting on April 7th. Come out and see how they do!

$15.82

2009-03-31T15:41:00.006-04:00

This is the residential tax rate (per $1,000 valuation) in Amherst for FY09. According to data from the Department of Revenue's Division of Local Services, this rate is the 17th highest in the Commonwealth. The highest property tax rate in the state is currently held by Pelham, at $18.06. Springfield, Greenfield, Shutesbury, Longmeadow, and East Longmeadow all have tax rates higher than Amherst.

One often-mentioned solution to the current structural deficit in Amherst is to increase commercial property and/or the tax rate for commercial property in town. Of the sixteen towns with higher tax rates than Amherst, only Springfield has a higher tax rate for commercial property than for residential property. Among other local towns, none have a split tax rate although all three of the towns often compared to Amherst for their school systems do. Brookline, Cambridge, and Newton all have a lower residential tax rate than Amherst and a higher rate for commercial property. That could be one reason their residential tax rates are relatively low, although Hadley's rate is the lowest of all towns shown here except for Cambridge and it does not have a split tax rate.

Surprisingly, when I looked at the relative distribution of parcels into different classifications (single family homes, multi-family homes, commercial, industrial, open, etc), Amherst had 5.0% of its parcels classified as commercial. This is above the state proportion of 3.8%. Among the towns with higher tax rates than Amherst, only the cities--Springfield and Greenfield--had a higher proportion of commercial parcels. Nearby Hadley has 12.3% of its parcels classified as commercial. Cambridge and Newton, the other two towns with residential tax rates below $10, have commercial proportions of 5.0% and 2.8%, respectively but do have higher tax rates for commercial property.

To raise increased revenue through commercial property, Amherst would either have to increase the commercial parcels or increase the commercial tax rate (or both). Another idea might be to take advantage of one aspect of Amherst that is different than many other communities--the relatively high proportion of our parcels that are classified as "apartments." For Amherst, this is 2.1%, above the state average of 1.4% and higher than all towns shown here with the exceptions of Greenfield and Cambridge.

One respondent to the Facilitation of Community Choices questionnaire had an interesting idea for solving the structural deficit:

"Tax landlord-owned residences at a higher rax rate than home owner-occupied residence. The city of Somerville does this by giving homeowners $1,800 off their property taxes. Rental houses are businesses. 50% of Amherst homes are rentals and the increased taxes can be shared by landlords, who can write off ALL expenses related to their properties--unlike homeowners."

Not only are 2.1% of the parcels in Amhert classified as apartments...according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American FactFinder, 54.4% of the housing units in Amherst are renter-occupied! Compared to only 32.7% for the U.S. as a whole. Perhaps Amherst should look to this resource as a way to decrease the gap between revenue and expenses in town. The suggestion above does make sense.

Voting By The Numbers

2009-03-27T11:15:00.002-04:00

The local group Sustainable Amherst has once again created an informative guide to the 2009 local election. Committeed to fiscal sustainability driven by a strong economic base in Amherst, Sustainable Amherst rates current Town Meeting members based on their past votes on items related to budget and economic development. This is really a detailed and fascinating analysis and a must-read not only before you head to the polls but for anyone interested in the items that have come before TM in the past few years that deal with these issues.

For example, a look at the scorecard reveals the voting record of the five members of our current Finance Committee with an established record. All five have a score between +24 and +31 (according the rating scale, +34 represents the highest possible fiscal sustainability score). A good sign, in my mind, for those who are minding the money!

Sustainable Amherst also creates a handy candidate endorsement checklist that voters who are concerned with fiscal sustainability can print out and bring to the polls. I was interested to see that, in some cases, they are endorsing newcomers to the Town Meeting scene who do not yet have a voting record. In my precinct (6), for example, they have endorsed not only incumbents Rob Spence (score of +17), Jim Brissette (+12), Michael Greenbaum (+11), and Josef Willie (+1), but also unranked candidates Michael Jacques, Paul Kaplan, and myself.

Whether you agree with the opinions of Sustainable Amherst or their approach to fiscal sustainability or not, their web site offers invaluable information on our elected officials in one convenient location. I encourage you to stop by today.

64.7%

2009-03-25T13:14:00.004-04:00

The percent of Special Education students who graduated from Amherst Regional High School in 2007. At least according to the official Massachusetts school profile. In thinking about the Special Education Task Force suggested by Catherine Sanderson, I decided to look up a few objective measures of "success" for special education in our school districts and other, comparable (either geographically or educationally) districts. "We need to get these kids to graduation" is one statement I have repeatedly heard made with respect to our special education students, so I started with graduation rate.

With respect to the proportion of all students in the district are classified as special education, Amherst-Pelham is the district with the fifth largest proportion (18.6%), behind Frontier, Cambridge, Northampton, and Newton. Overall 17.1% of students in the state have been classified as special ed.

With respect to graduation rates, however, Amherst-Pelham comes in ninth (tied with South Hadley) in overall graduation rate (87.2%), above only Pioneer, Hadley, and Frontier. For special ed graduation rates, Amherst-Pelham falls to tenth, above only Pioneer and Belchertown. This 64.7% special ed graduation rate is higher than the state rate of 62.8%.

Another way to look at the data is to compare the difference between the regular ed and special ed graduation rates. In other words, does a district have equally high or equally low graduation rates for all students or is there a large difference between the proportion of regular education students who graduate and that of special education students that graduate? The latter might be a good way to determine whether the special education population of a district is being served with respect to this goal.

Amherst-Pelham has the tenth highest difference between regular and special education graduation rates (27.9%) among these comparable districts. Only Pioneer and Belchertown have a higher difference (data for Hatfield is suppressed due to small numbers). This does not indicate to me that the Amherst-Pelham district is equally meeting the needs of our regular and special education students, despite the amount of money spent on our special education programs and the fact that we have two separate high school campuses for small populations of special education students.

Districts like Hadley and Cambridge, on the other hand, have graduation rate differentials of 3.9% and 4.9%, respectively. Yes, Hadley is a much smaller district with a very small number of special education students, but Cambridge is not. Perhaps the Special Education Task Force could start by looking at what Cambridge is doing to help special education students reach the goal of graduation as well as looking locally to see what Hadley might be doing. It would be a good place to start.

Guest Blog--Bridges

2009-03-20T21:07:00.003-04:00

A parent contacted me in response to my $128,000 post and talked to me in great length about the Bridges program at ARMS. In addition to talking to me, this parent also expressed an interest in informing people more generally about a personal experience with Bridges and also to share thoughts about special education in general. What follows is this parent's requested "guest blog." As you will read, this parent prefers to remain anonymous. To make communication easier, this parent invites any questions or comments to be directed to Sylvia Barrett. I now turn the floor over...

Thank you so much to Alison for being such a gracious host. My preference in all communication is to use my real name, but I feel I must guest-blog pseudonymously in order to ensure my children's privacy.

A note on usage: I use the phrases “Special Education” and “Regular Education” simply because they are the generally accepted terms. I do not mean to imply that any student is not a unique, deserving and precious asset to our schools.

I offer my congratulations to the Amherst bloggers who are working so hard in pursuit of school transparency. Having had children in the system, both in Special and Regular Education, for nearly 10 years, and having become more and more resigned to Amherst's particular brand of institutional stubbornness, I am delighted to see people still willing to work toward change.

I asked Alison for the opportunity to write a post, because, given the spirit of this blog, I hope to add some real-life experience, and questions stemming from that experience, to the discussion that has begun here, and on Catherine Sanderson's blog, about funding for Special Education.

A Totally Unfun Thing That I Would Never Do Again If I Didn't Have To
Interactions between parents and Special Ed. administrators in Amherst, and, I gather, in most towns and cities, are highly adversarial and feature a power differential. Most parents walk into an IEP meeting feeling some level of desperation about the needs of their children. And, as much as they insist on calling it a “Team” meeting, Special Ed. administrators hold all the cards. The parent's job in a meeting is to convince an administrator that the child in question is worthy of the money that would need to be spent to provide services. The administrator's job, as far as I have been able to tell, is to deny services if at all possible, because they are working with limited resources. Any parent who has taken part in this particular tableau might panic to hear that getting a “yes” will become even more difficult under some budget scenarios.

So, on the one hand, we have parents who are afraid they will have to be even more aggressive to get even a portion of the help their children need. On the other, we have Special Ed. administrators who have repeatedly demonstrated that their mandate is to say no to parents as much as possible. Budget cuts in Special Ed. will make the work of both of these groups even harder.

Confusing matters is the perception by some officials and community members that Special Ed. money is untouchable and by others that it is only fair to cut Special Ed. in proportion to the hits that Regular Ed. is taking. Add labyrinthine federal and state laws, rules and regulations to the mix, and we have the makings of endless arguments from multiple perspectives over a constantly changing but basically unknown amount of money.
I don't pretend to understand either the monetary or legal intricacies of Special Education, but I think, at this crisis point, our community needs those who do have the real numbers to contribute the data so that the debate can become less emotional and more reality-based.

Questions:
--What are the true amounts in the Special Ed. budgets?
--Are the sources of the funds exclusively from the Amherst and Regional budgets, or are there other sources of funding as well? How much money comes from each source?
--Are there untapped sources of Special Ed. funding?
--What services and programs, if any, are protected by law, or is it just the right to a free and appropriate education for identified students that is protected?

Bridges Over Troubled School Districts
For many of us, the only enjoyable part of an IEP meeting is the knowledge that we will in all likelihood come away able to regale our friends and neighbors with a brand new horror story.

Just to prove my Sped cred, here is a bitter snippet:

I was asked by a “Team,” to agree, on the spot, to enroll my child in the Bridges Program at the Amherst Regional Middle School. I, like most people in town, had never heard of Bridges. I was greeted by shock and annoyance when I answered that I would not place my child in a program I had not observed.

As unpleasant as this IEP meeting was, I can now claim membership in a very exclusive club: those who have seen the Bridges Program firsthand. We are so rare, I myself have never met another member.

Since my child was referred to it, I was allowed to observe the Bridges Program in a recent school year, and while I did agree not to divulge the identities of any of the students I encountered there, I feel it is only right to do my part in fulfilling this blog's transparency mandate by describing what I saw. Most importantly, since one of the few proposed budget additions, rather than cuts, to the Amherst Regional School budget is intended to add resources to the Bridges Program, it seems only fair that the public know as much as they can about where the money will be going.

My verdict: Billed as a therapeutic program (suggesting an environment that provides at least some interventions for emotional difficulties), Bridges is, upon inspection, a placement where interventions exist solely for middle school students whose issues manifest in difficult behavior.

When I visited, I saw a boy who had spent an entire year in the not so distant past threatening to beat up one of my children (not the one recommended for Bridges). The other student I recognized was one who I knew to have been removed from mainstream elementary school years before, due to uncontrollable behavior. I do not think it would be overstepping the limits of my observational powers and historical knowledge to surmise that these two students were in Bridges for behavioral reasons. I was glad to see these two children in a safe, controlled setting where I hope they could focus on learning.

This is the Bridges handbook I was given. While paying brief lip service to academics and emotional issues, this booklet very clearly describes a behavioral program. There are incentives, points, levels, privileges gained and lost.

I was and continue to be alarmed when the school district calls Bridges a “therapeutic setting,” implying it offers emotional support to students who need this type of intervention on a daily basis. What I saw was a small, structured behavioral modification program for children who disrupt regular classrooms. I noticed nothing inherently wrong with the program as it existed, but I wonder why its function and population were obfuscated.

Epilogue: My child does not have and never has had behavioral troubles at school, and I informed the team that this student was not an appropriate candidate for the Bridges Program.

My personal question:
--Why did administrators, who presumably knew the inner workings of the program, suggest placing my child in Bridges when it so clearly was not the right setting?

My questions about Special Ed. policy and procedures:
--Why is Bridges not called and publicly known to be a behavioral program?
--What happens in Building Blocks and at the South Amherst High School Campus and East Street Annex, and why are these programs also veiled in secrecy?

Questions I would ask before adding funding to Bridges:
--Whom is the program said to serve and whom does it actually serve?
--How many students in Bridges are on free/reduced cost lunch?
--How many students benefit from the program, and should there be more students in the program?
--Can and should it be improved, and what would the true cost of that improvement be?
--What are the justifications for those costs?
--Is it possible to fund all or part of a Special Ed. program from a source other than the regional school budget?
--How would you measure whether changes made to improve the program were successful?

Per-Pupil Expenditures

2009-03-19T12:20:00.004-04:00

In response to a poster on Catherine Sanderson's blog regarding the potential for school choice to bring in enough revenue to help mitigate the budget problem in the Amherst elementary district, I did some research. According to information Catherine presented, school choice would raise $5,000 per student entering our system. In contrast, as I learned, Amherst spends an average of $15,224 per pupil annually (data are for FY08, the most recent numbers I could find). And although clearly some of this spending goes for things like principals and librarians (and we wouldn't have to add more of those--I think--if we added choice kids), these numbers still make me question whether or not school choice would be a money-maker for the Amherst district.

Then I got fascinated by all the other data on the same site, specifically how it breaks out the per-pupil expenditure for various parts of the budget. The data for both Amherst and Amherst-Pelham Regional (as well as the State comparisons although I am not sure how useful those are) appear in the table below. The data are taken directly from the source and I added a measure of rank for each item. I will explain. There were 300 (out of 328) districts for which data were available. Thus, a possible rank from 1 to 300. A rank of 1 would mean that you were the "top" in that category--the most pupils (i.e. Boston), the highest per-pupil expenditures for administration, etc. A rank of 150, then, would indicate that a district was essentially right in the middle of the pack for that category.

Looking at the table, it is clear that Amherst and Amherst-Pelham is close to the middle of the pack with respect to total number of pupils (ranks of 177 and 162, respectively). With respect to total per-pupil expenditure, however, both districts are in the top 20% of districts in the Commonwealth. Amherst ranks 56 while Amherst-Pelham ranks 44 in terms of total per-pupil expenditures. I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I suspect that the more relevant numbers come from measures of student success rather than expenditures. If our students are performing in the top 20% of all students in MA, for example, that might be a better indicator of success for a district. But that correlation between per-pupil expenditures and student performance/outcomes is another analysis.

What we can do with this table is look at what categories of the budget Amherst and Amherst-Pelham are more (or less) likely to spend money on relative both to themselves (i.e. their total ranks of 56 and 44) and to all districts in MA (i.e. where they fall above or below the rank of 150).

When I look at the table, for example, I see that Amherst is more likely to rank higher in expenditures for "instructional leadership," and "classroom and specialist teachers," and much higher for "other teaching services" and "insurance/retirement/other" than either their total rank or the median state rank. At the same time, they rank lower compared both to its total rank and compared to the median state rank in "instructional materials/equipment/technology," "pupil services," and spending on "pupils outside district." Amherst ranks higher than the state median (but lower than their total rank) in expenditures for "administration," "professional development," "guidance, counseling, and testing, and "operations/maintenance."

The Amherst-Pelham district shows a slightly different pattern. It ranks higher than both its own total rank and higher than the state median rank in the categories of "instructional leadership," "guidance, counseling, and testing," "operations/maintenance," and "insurance/retirement/other," and much higher than both in expenditures for "professional development." Amherst-Pelham ranks below its own total but above the state median in expenditures for "administration," "classroom and specialist teachers," "other teaching services," "instructional materials/equipment/technology," "pupil services," and spending on "pupils outside district." Our regional district does not rank below the state median rank for expenditures in any category.

Overall, the highest rank for the Amherst district (22) was in "insurance/retirement/other," followed by the 26 for "other teaching services." The highest rank for the Amherst-Pelham district was the 18 for "professional development" followed by the 27 for "insurance/retirement/other."

When looking at our budgets for next year, the School Committee might want to take a close look at how our money, proportionally to our total budget, is being spent as well as how our per-pupil spending in various areas compares to districts with which we might routinely compare ourselves. In both our districts, for example, we are ranked higher in spending for "insurance/retirement/other," so an explanation for that might be one place to start.

It might very well that our School Committee and/or school administration has already looked at these numbers and has determined that this is how our money is best spent and that our students have the outcomes that support the various types of expenditures. It is also possible that once you restrict the analysis only to school districts with configurations like ours (i.e. only K-6 districts for Amherst and only 7-12 districts like Amherst-Pelham), the relative ranking could be different. But looking at the numbers above is at least a good place to start looking for some answers and some questions.

$671,000

2009-03-16T22:00:00.002-04:00

The amount of money that could be saved with the closing of Marks Meadow, not including the cost of moving the two portable classrooms currently located there (According to the document "Reconfiguration Options--Current Understanding 2.10.09" which I got at the School Committee meeting of that date but could not find on-line.). If these portables had to be moved to accomodate students in one of the other three elementary schools, the amount of money that could be saved would be $406,000 with $671,000 being the estimated savings in Year 2. Costs that, as I understand it, would be primarily personnel as UMass pays for the utilities at Marks Meadow. And since the majority of the costs for Marks Meadow is personnel, these costs would increase between 3.5% and 5% per year based on the current contracts.

Apparently closing Marks Meadow would result in four fewer classroom teachers for the Elementary District, one fewer each principal, secretary, ELL teacher, special ed teacher, intervention teacher, nurse, librarian, and therapeutic para as well as 1.5 fewer custodial FTEs and 1.13 fewer paraprofessional FTEs.

The voices for and against closing Marks Meadow have been public and insistent so I won't repeat those arguments here. I did want to comment on a thoughtful argument I heard by Nick Yaffe, current principal of Marks Meadow, during the December meeting of the short-lived Amherst Elementary Reorganization Committee, of which I was a member. He urged delay in considering the closing of Marks Meadow in the face of potential discussions of regionalization of our entire K-12 system. That made sense to me, since why would we potentially want to move our kids twice in a relatively short amount of time if we didn't have to?

So even though I was in support of closing Marks Meadow for fiscal reasons, this comment by Nick Yaffe did stick in my mind. Then I read the article by Nick Grabbe in the Bulletin this past week where regionalization was the topic and the current model apparently under discussion (the article reports Andy Churchill saying) was the identification of both Marks Meadow and the Pelham School as "more likely candidates for closure" under a K-12 regional model. So, in my mind, if the regionalization team is considering closing Marks Meadow under that model, that removes the one bit of doubt I may have had about whether or not closing Marks Meadow makes sense next year. Difficult, yes, I won't argue with that. But perhaps financially necessary to maintain a good quality education for all our elementary students.

The Elementary School Committee meets tomorrow, 7PM in the Middle School cafeteria to discuss the budget and whether or not the closing of Marks Meadow has been taken off the table. At the last round of budget talks (March 3rd), the lists of cuts and additions was presented without any mention of how the potential closing of Marks Meadow fit into the financial picture. Superintendent Geryk said that she and the four principals did not recommend closing the school at this time. Catherine Sanderson asked what among those cuts might be saved with the closing of Marks Meadow. I hope our budget folks have preared that answer for her. Anyone with interest not only in the budget for our elementary schools but also in the future of Marks Meadow should consider attending the meeting tomorrow to find out what the update is.

Regional Administration Numbers

2009-03-14T14:32:00.003-04:00

A few days ago, a commenter asked about the relative increase in administrative costs for our Regional District and I said I would look into it. Below you will find the administrative payroll costs for various aspects of administration for our Regional Schools from FY07-the proposed FY10 budgets. The documents I used can be found here. For "Tier 1 cuts" I used the most recent information I had (March 10, 2009). I'm sure as the budget changes, these numbers will also change slightly. I do want to note that I included only payroll expenses, partially because they were well-broken out in that budget section (and not as well-broken out under the "expense account" section), but mostly because it was relatively easy to find the "administrative" positions that were being cut/added under the Tier 1 budget whereas it wasn't as easy to determine which expense account cuts/additions might fall under the heading "administration." Payroll accounts for the vast majority of all costs, though, so this is a good place to start. The final note is that the cost of health insurance is the single largest category in "expense accounts" and since health insurance is linked directly to personnel, we do need to keep in mind that everyone accounted for in "payroll," also brings a health insurance expense. (It takes a lot to try to untangle all these numbers.)

As you can see from the data table, the Regional budget overall was originally increased by 6.7% but is reduced to a 1.7% increase under the Tier 1 cuts/additions budget. So how do the increases to our administrative costs compare to the increase to our overall budget?

For our administration overall, the original increase was 6.0%, slightly less than the increase of the overall budget. Under the Tier 1 cuts/additions (as best as I can figure it), the cost of administration would actually be decreasing 5.5%! The largest decreases come from the elimination of an assistant principal for both the high school and the middle school.

Even under the original FY10 budget, the cost of central administration was decreasing by 0.6%, primarily driven by the 16.2% decrease in the superintendent's office (and I don't know how this was affected by the salaries of our interim superintendents nor how it will be impacted by the salary of our newly-hired superintendent). On the other hand, the original total school administration increased by 8.2% with the largest increase seen for high school administration (13.1%) and a decrease actually seen for regular ed administration (13.9%).

For those who are wondering whether or not the administration is taking a proportional share of cuts in the currently-proposed FY10 budget, according to these numbers (which do only look at payroll expenses and only at the Tier 1 budget since the Tier 2 and Tier 3 budgets are less fleshed-out), it appears as if it is. If anyone has more detailed or more up-to-date numbers on this topic, please feel free to share.

Twelve

2009-03-13T08:38:00.004-04:00

This represents the number of candidates for Town Meeting in Precinct 6, my precinct in town. With voters able to vote for eight candidates, this is apparently the most hotly-contested precinct in Amherst this year (ballots for other precincts are also available on-line--check them out so you know what to expect when you hit the polls). At the urging of a number of other Town Meeting members (among them, Amherst blogger Clare Bertrand of Precinct 8), I threw my name into the hat. So if you live in Precinct 6, I would appreciate your vote. I am running on a platform of transparency and long-term strategic planning. Although I have never before served on Town Meeting, my experience on the Facilitation of Community Choices Committee makes me a very well-informed member of our community and my experience with data will be another asset I bring to the table.

Please also remember that we have three candidates for School Committee running for two slots! These are key positions in town--our School Committee is in charge of managing the majority of the budget in town--so please take some time to check out their positions and their web sites:
--Steven Rivkin (whom I know from the Fort River community and for his work with the Amherst Committee for Excellence)
--Irv Rhodes (who served with me on the FCCC)
--Megan Rosa (whom I don't know but whose web site has a lot of information about her)

There is a candidates' forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters next Wednesday night, March 18th at the middle school auditorium. Come meet the candidates or watch on ACTV. And most importantly, don't forget to vote on Tuesday, March 31st!

Numbers for Jennifer

2009-03-11T13:09:00.005-04:00

In my previous post, I mentioned the Bridges Program in the middle school. In the comments section, Jennifer wondered how many students were in the two alternative high schools in town and how much it costs to run each program. She is not the first person to ask me this, or a related question, so I thought I would do a separate blog entry to address these programs.

The data to address this come from the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District Budget Planning Information FY10 document. The information is found on the table on page 28 which I have done my best to reproduce here since it provides a lot of detailed data.

To answer Jennifer's specific question, there are currently 29 students at the South Amherst campus (with 5 or 6 FTE--reading of that column is not clear) and 17 students in the East Street Alternative School (5 or 2 FTE).

This document, however, does not provide information on what it costs to run these programs, aside from a reporting of FTE (which you might be able to multiple by $54,000 which is the number used to represent the average teacher salary in the current budget documents). I don't know how much it costs to bus these kids to these schools, how much it costs to heat and light these buildings, or if there are any other associated costs.

Jennifer wonders if our district could consolidate these two schools and/or move these students to the main high school building. I don't know the answer to that but given our severe economic crisis where students on our main campus are being required to sign up for two study halls, I certainly hope someone is looking at these numbers.

When my oldest was at Fort River, the East Street Annex was used for elementary classrooms. There are (or were) four available. If you take an average class size of 20, it would seem that the capacity of the East Street Annex would be well above the 17 currently located in the building. In fact, rather than spend the money to move the portable classrooms to Crocker Farm in the event that Marks Meadow Elementary is closed, I have suggested that the Elementary District look into once again utilizing these four classrooms to expand the number of children who could be educated at Fort River, potentially saving money for that district.

Of course, in attempting to answer Jennifer's question, I have undoubtedly raised a lot more. I hope our School Committee members and school administrators have the answers.

Nine

2009-03-11T06:23:00.003-04:00

When I asked, at the Regional School Committee last night, for an explanation of the Bridges program and how many new students they were expecting into the program next year, this is what I was told. There were nine students entering Bridges next year. I asked if this meant that there would now be 17 kids in the program or if any of the currently-enrolled 8 were going on to the high school. They didn't know. So, even if we think that none of them are leaving (an unrealistic assumption, in my mind, especially since this year's 8th grade is substantially larger than either this year's 6th or 7th grades), we would then have 5 FTE serving 17 kids.

Maria Geryk did provide a description of Bridges. Basically, is it a "therapeutic program" where kids may be separate from the classroom but may also be taking regular classes. By her description of therapeutic, it seems to be a program where any need of these kids is met by a trained professional. Autism specialists, specialists in anxiety, special ed teachers, etc. I'm sure it is a complicated program.

When I challenged the need to spend an extra $128,000 next year for this program (at most, nine more students) when we were in a serious budget crisis and talking about decimating world languages and cutting a team for the rising 8th graders (a move that brought Principal Cresto to tears talking about it), I was essentially told by Superintendent Geryk that "it isn't a numbers game and you can't think of it as a certain number of FTEs for a certain number of students" and by Elaine Brighty that "there are kids with IEPs so we can't touch it." Basically, "STOP ASKING."

Again, I will repeat...I have nothing against Bridges. I have nothing against these kids, nor do I doubt that they may have special needs. What I do have a problem with is listening to the School Committee and the school administrators repeatedly saying that part of the rationale for cutting Russian and German is "low enrollment" but not seeing them apply that same logic to programs like Bridges. If they are going to apply that logic (which, I will admit, is sound logic in these economic times), they should at least be willing to consider those same standards for special education programs.

As Catherine Sanderson has repeatedly stated in her blog, in reference to the proposed closing/keeping open of Marks Meadow, "by choosing to keep Marks Meadow open, you are also choosing to decimate/eliminate the instrumental music program for all elementary schools." I would argue that the same thing is happening here. In all honesty, our school administrators and School Commitee should stand up and admit to the parents of all middle school students, "we are decimating the world language program in the middle school and cutting into the core academics by eliminating one team in part so we can add services for the 17 [or whatever the actual number is] students in the Bridges Program." Because, in choosing to fund one thing, you are choosing not to fund another.

$128,000

2009-03-09T14:23:00.002-04:00

Proposed amount to be added to the Regional District budget in FY10 for the Bridges Program in the middle school. This would go for 2 "professionals" (from the salary level I assume these would be teachers?) and one paraprofessional. So we would be adding $128,000 for this compared to eliminating $118,800 (2.20 FTE) for world languages. Available to ALL seventh graders, presumably also students in Bridges.

What, I asked myself, is the Bridges Program and how many students does it serve? I was able to answer the second part of the question through the Amherst Regional School District Budget Planning Information document. According to page 28, there were 8 students enrolled in Bridges this year. Yes, 8. At this point, according to the same data table, there are 2.0 FTE dedicated to this program. Resulting in a staff:student ratio of 4:1. Pretty good! So by adding an additional 3.0 FTE to Bridges next year, it would bring the total FTE to 5.0. This represents an increase of 250% for this program. So unless the district is also anticipating a 250% growth in Bridges students (which would mean there would be 20 students enrolled in FY10), this represents a significant increase in resources for a very small group of students.

As to what, exactly, the Bridges Program is, I still have no definitive answer. It is listed under "specialized programs" in the planning document and was listed under "special programs" in the recent presentation given by Principal Cresto to incoming seventh grade parents at the middle school. Nothing further. I do remember someone at the February 24th School Committee meeting asking why so much money was being put into Bridges but the only answer that was given (by then-Superintendent Vivian) was that if we didn't add these resources to Bridges, the parents of these students may well tuition their children out to other districts (a topic I will post about soon because it has yielded some very interesting information).

So, I am left with facing the possibility of my rising seventh grader (and almost 300 others like him) being unable to take a language next year while the 8 students currently enrolled in Bridges get an increase of 250% to their teaching/professional staff next year. I have nothing against these students or this program (how could I when I really know nothing about it?!), but in these hard times, hard choices must be made and I hope the School Committee is looking at these same numbers and also wondering, "is this money being best spent toward the education of the students in our care?"

None

2009-03-07T14:39:00.002-05:00

This is the number of other area middle/high schools on the trimester system. Belchertown, Frontier Regional, Granby, Hadley, Hatfield, Northampton, Pioneer Regional, and South Hadley. All on the semester system while Amherst Regional is on the trimester system.

In this week's Bulletin, Cynthia Gensheimer makes an eloquent case for the return of the semester system to Amherst. I agree. The article makes all the points I would make (and more), but I did want to point out some numbers supporting her argument.

As I mentioned above, none of our local middle/high schools are also on the trimester system. Cynthia points out that if any of our students were to transfer, they would be out of sync with semester-based schools. Thus, our students are likely to be out of sync with ALL of our local schools at this point; schools to which they are likely to transfer.

Perhaps Amherst Regional knows something the other districts do not. Perhaps the trimester system is BETTER. To test that theory, I looked at what most would argue are the best school systems in Massachusetts--Brookline, Cambridge, Framingham, Longmeadow, and Newton. Are they on the trimester system? Nope. They, too, use semesters. I did find a few systems in MA that use trimesters--North Andover, Littleton, Quincy, Springfield Renaissance School, the Swift River Academy Therapeutic Boarding School--but not many.

Another point made in the article is that our children are not being prepared for the semester-based college experience by using trimesters. I decided to look into that and see how many colleges and universities did use the trimester system. As you can see, the list is short and comprised mostly of state universities (not in New England) although a few of the top schools--Dartmouth and Stanford among them--do use a trimester system. TIME magazine has a good summary article about the use (or lack thereof) of the trimester system at the post-secondary level. In addition, one of the bonuses of living in a college town is, in theory, the access to college-level courses by our advanced high school students. But since none of the five colleges in our immediate area are on a trimester system, I wonder how our high schools students could fit a college course into their trimester-bound year.

In 2006-2007, Amherst did "study" the trimester system but the results were inconclusive. "So, the upshot of the two years worth of work is this: the committee was not successful in building consensus, which was the decision-making standard stipulated from the beginning of the process, around its recommendation. For now, then, the trimester schedule is the default and will remain in effect." Which, apparently, means that our middle and high schools are operating in default mode. Reassuring.

34.6%

2009-03-06T12:32:00.007-05:00

That is the proportion of revenues for the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District that comes from state funding. A commenter on my previous post wondered where the money for the schools comes from and I thought that was a good question. My previous post was on the Amherst Elementary District but I could not find information on the sources of revenue for that district (but will email Rob Detweiler) but do have that information for the Regional District.

This pie chart comes from my work on the Facilitation of Com munity Choices Committee and illustrates the sources of revenue for the Regional District for FY09 (the year we are currently in). As you can see, the majority of funding for this district (56.9%) comes from assessments from the four towns. The town of Amherst contributes about 44% of the total Regional budget (FY09).

After assessments from the four towns, state aid is the next big slice--34.6%. This leaves only 8.5% of revenue from other sources.

While I don't have the figures for the Elementary District, I do know that there are no revenue streams at that level for choice (since we don't take choice students), we don't have any E & D funds, and I am almost certain that the only transportation reimbursements from the state go to regional districts. Otherwise, I would imagine that the picture for Amherst looks similar to that for the Regional District.

For FY10, state aid is expected to remain flat, suggesting that in order to maintain the same level of services, a larger proportion of funding would have to come from the towns. Meanwhile, Amherst, at least, has asked our schools (as well as the other budget managers in town) to keep their budget projections lower in FY10--2.0% growth for the Amherst District and 3.5% growth for the Regional District. Which does not translate to level services. Hence, the cuts which are currently receiving heated debate at the School Committee meetings (which you can watch on-demand through ACTV).

Impact of Proposed Cuts

2009-03-05T12:44:00.000-05:00

First, some context. According to the District Profile for the Amherst elementary school district, 18.7% of students in the district are classified as Special Education. This means 81.3% are Regular Education students. According numbers produced by Rob Detweiler, the able number-cruncher for ARPS, Regular Ed made up 38.4% of the district's FY00 budget yet only 27.8% of our current (FY09) budget. Meanwhile, Special Ed made up 20.3% of the FY00 budget and 21.5% of the FY09 budget. Clearly, the priorities of the district have shifted over these past nine years.

What happens under the currently-debated (FY10) budget? Let's take a look. For those who might want to check my numbers (and please, feel free), I am working with the "Amherst Public Schools Preliminary FY10 Budget Draft, January 13, 2009" and "FY10 Components Update, March 2, 2009."

Before any additions or cuts, the total budget is $21,933, 594. Regular Ed accounts for $6,126,528, Special Ed accounts for $4,810,719, and I have called the rest "other." This is comprised of health benefits (which, one could argue, should be put into the two above categories but I do not have those breakdowns), other insurance/benefits, utilities, transportation, and a host of other things needed to run a school system. Proportionally, before additions and cuts, Regular Ed accounts for 27.9% of the budget and Special Ed accounts for 21.9% of the budget.

I then took all the additions and cuts (from all three tiers) and classified them as to whether they would come from the Regular Ed, the Special Ed, or the Other budget. When I was in doubt (as in "supplies/materials/travel"), I put it in Other. This is what happens, proportionally, to those three budget areas under the currently-proposed additions and cuts:

--Regular Ed budget shrinks from $6,126,528 to $5,779,928 (Additions and Tier 1) to $5,445,128 (Tier 2) to $5,047,475 (Tier 3).
--Special Ed budget decreases from $4,810,719 to $4,720,740 (receiving only additions and cuts under Tier 1)

--Regular Ed goes from 27.9% of the budget down to 27.3% to 26.4% to only 25.2% of the budget. For 81.3% of our children!
--Special Ed goes from 21.9% to 22.3% to 22.9% to 23.5% of the budget.

In my opinion, this represents a shift in priorities for our school system that cannot be sustained if we want to maintain our expectations of a high-quality district focused on excellence for all students. I realize there are state mandates for Special Ed funding and invite any members of our administrative team and/or School Committee to break down for us what proportion of our Special Ed funds are currently required by state/federal law. If it is 100%, there is nothing we can do about it and we need to continue to provide the best education possible to the 81.3% of our children who rely on an increasingly shrinking pot of funds. If it is less than 100%, I urge our administrators and School Commitee members to look closely at the relative level of funding for Regular and Special Ed and to look particularly hard at the impact of the currently-proposed cuts on Regular Education.