Superintendent Jason McCandless outlined additional cuts beyond the reduction of 28 positions on Monday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The School Department is asking for a 3.5 percent budget increase.

Superintendent Jason McCandless says the budget  won't "devastate" the school system but also won't allow growth.

McCandless said contractual obligations for fiscal 2016 went up by $1.4 million, payments on new buses added $370,000 to the budget, electricity is expected to rise $108,000 and gas $422,000, and another $1 million in special education tuition costs are expected to increase. 

 

"These four items plus our contractual obligations are driving the discussion," McCandless said, adding that the department also lost revenues in a kindergarten grant that was reduced by some $369,100 and changes to the federal e-rate program that cost $35,000 in revenue.

 

Even anticipating a $1.9 million increase from the city, McCandless said the department was still $2 million short of having a level budget.

 

Over the last two weeks, McCandless and Business Administrator Kristen Behnke outlined a series of cuts to close the gap. Mostly notably, there is an expected reduction of 28 full-time equivalent positions. Many of those workers will be able to move into positions of people retiring or moving to another jobs, McCandless expects, so most of those workers won't be out of a job but their former positions won't be filled.

 

"All of those positions hurt. But we are also looking at some programmatic moves," McCandless said. 

 

The positions span a number of schools and jobs. They include two from administration and technology, an early childhood coordinator, STEM coordinator, humanities coordinators, two from instructional technology and dropping hours of another position in that department, three regular education teachers and two special education teachers at Reid Middle School, two regular education and two special education teachers at Herberg, four teachers at Taconic High School, a paraprofessional from both Conte and Pittsfield High School, one elementary position and three in vocational. 

 

McCandless is also suggesting cutting $106,281 from the adult education program; $224,327 from the teen parent program tutors; $57,464 from the homebound tutors line; $10,000 from promotional and public relations lines; $12,500 of the contribution to the Focus on Diversity program; $180,000 on special education out-of-district tuition; a technology equipment reduction of $40,000; $25,000 from vocational equipment and supplies; $20,000 from testing; using Title IIA grant to save $250,000; moving a teacher and a paraprofessional to the Title 1 grant program; cutting co-curricular stipends at the four upper schools saving $10,000; and moving one special education position to a grant carryover.

 

"It vastly reduces the curriculum leadership across the district. We are essentially eliminating the curriculum department," McCandless said of the overall cuts. 

 

In total, the cuts hit the $2,035,646 needed to balance the budget within the 3.5 percent increase. Balancing that budget does call for the use of some school choice revenue that was anticipated to come in this year for use in the next, according to Behnke.

 

McCandless said the budget "protects what we mostly value" and avoids "wholesale program cuts." But, he said the school department won't be in a position to grow its programming and administrators in the schools are going to have to "step up" to fill the voids.

 

"We don't want to reduce these things but we know that a 4 or 5 percent increase isn't possible," he said. "There things we need to grow. There are things we want to grow but they are going to have to remain stagnant."

 

School Committee member Pamela Farron, however, thinks the committee should advocate for more. Even with the 3.5 percent increase, she said, the city is still more than $8 million below the Proposition 2 1/2 levy limit.  

 

"It just seems to me and it seems like we need to seek more," she said.

 

Farron said other school districts are in similar circumstances but the towns are contributing more than 4 percent in many cases.

 

McCandless, however, responded that "the ability of the city to pay isn't in line with what the spread sheet says is the ability to tax."

 

Other School Committee members asked if the department is paying for the new bus fleet out of its operations budget. Typically, that type of expense comes from the city's capital budget. It is "uncommon" to see schools or any other department build in the cost of vehicles into their operating budget, the administrators said.

 

Behnke said the situation dates back to the last bus purchase when the School Committee at the time agreed to take financial responsibility for the next purchase. That next purchase came last year, when the department bought a new fleet.

 

The public hearing on the budget is Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in the Pittsfield High library.