Why This Year's BOE Budget is Different: Part 3

This is the third in a series of posts on education funding issues facing Manchester’s BOE. 

As I said in my first post on this issue, for the last three years, Manchester’s education budget has increased on average, at half the rate of inflation.  The good news: this short term belt-tightening has resulted in a number of initiatives to improve efficiency and/or reduce costs. 

The following is a sampling of recent actions by the BOE to reduce costs or improve efficiency:

Consolidated classrooms, especially at the elementary level.  Since the 2010/11 school year, we’ve reduced classrooms and therefore our teaching staff by more than 20 teachers, mostly at the elementary school level.  While this has resulted in increased class sizes, it has saved the district at least $1.1 million per year.

Negotiated union labor wage & step freezes.  The BOE negotiated wage and step freezes with all its unions in prior years.  A 1% reduction in wages over two years saved the district approximately $1.2 million. Wage freezes are helpful in the short-term to keep costs down, but long term, they make our teacher salary schedules less competitive when compared with other districts, making it harder in the long term to retain and attract high quality teachers.  Indeed, we’re seeing this problem manifest itself.  To learn more about this, see my second post.

Reduced central office & administration staff.  The BOE has resisted cuts that directly affect the classroom, and therefore has cut central office staff and other non-core staff (e.g., secretaries).  Today we have eight fewer administrators than we did three years ago, saving the district an additional $800,000 per year. 

Conducted an efficiency study and implemented recommendations.  A year ago the BOE performed an efficiency study on its operations and learned that while there were few significant cost savings opportunities; there were a number of opportunities to improve delivery of services across the district, many of which have been implemented. 

Does this mean there are no further cost savings opportunities?  Of course not; and the administration and BOE will continue to evaluate cost saving opportunities in the future.  However, the remaining cost savings opportunities become harder to come by and more likely touch programming and services that directly affect students. After years of under-funding education, that’s exactly where we are.

The problem is that chronic under-funding causes long-term structural issues, much like the ones we have with our school buildings.  After years of underfunding maintenance and capital improvements in our elementary schools, we must now make significant investments in our buildings.

The same is true with our operating budget: continued annual reductions to our operating budget request results in having to cut programs that make Manchester’s schools attractive. Given that this year’s budget gap is the largest the BOE has ever seen; it’s not surprising that the proposed reductions to close the gap directly impact students and programs.  

Rather than cuts to programs, we need targeted investments that ensure that we retain students in district (thereby saving added magnet school tuition and transportation costs).  This includes continuing to offer a wide variety of activities and programming, including clubs, sports, music, arts as well as gifted and talented enrichment programing.  These investments not only help to make Manchester’s Public Schools attractive in an age of school choice, they allow us to provide quality education services in a cost effective manner.

Note: The opinions expressed in this blog are that of Board of Education Chairman Chris Pattacini and do not reflect the views of the entire Manchester Board of Education.