Adams-Cheshire Panel Questions Collins Center Advice
CHESHIRE, Mass. — The Adams-Cheshire Regional School District was handed an ambitious set of guidelines last week to right its financial ship. Now school officials are looking to see if any of them can be put into action.
The University of Massachusetts' Collins Center presented a number of options last week in a study commissioned by the town of Adams to review the regional school district's current and future status regarding finances and enrollment.
But on Thursday, the Audit and Evaluation subcommittee, in its review, found some of the savings proposals in the report to be questionable.
One option in particular calls for transferring health benefits for current employees and retirees from Berkshire Health Group to the Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission, or GIC, to save an estimated $750,000.
School Committee member Darlene Rodowicz said she questioned the numbers and asked for updated programs and rates for both groups.
"This view is clearly what happens in Boston and if these programs aren't here and some are frozen, what choices do we have?" she asked. "Updated numbers will give us a more accurate picture of what will happen with the GIC."
But the school district would have had to switch from Berkshire Health Group in December, said Business Manager Erika Snyder, and it would still be responsible for some payments if it backed out now.
Rodowicz asked her to get solid numbers so the committee can evaluate the pluses and minuses.
Committee member Stephan Vigna suggested they look at making whatever changes can be done, such as if those on family plans can pay in more or if their spouses could get insurance through their own employers.
Snyder said any changes would have to be negotiated with the unions.
Many districts in the county use Berkshire Health Group and do have concerns about rates, she said, however, because Adams-Cheshire has a significant amount of retirement PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) plans and the district pays 75 percent of Medex for qualified retirees, it pays more.
She added that an employee must be in the district 10 years to take advantage of retiree benefits but if he or she retires from the district, the district is responsible.
Also, if an employee retires early, the school district will keep the individual on an active plan until he or she reaches the age of 65, when Medicare kicks in. The district also will cover Medex supplements for life.
Snyder said because retirement benefits are built into contracts, all changes need to be negotiated. She said this was implemented by a past school committee.
Vigna said the district should consider renegotiating retirement benefits even if it would only affect future retirees. He said they need to look at offering a more "vanilla" plan.
"All of this has to be on the table," he said. "Let's find out what is in the contract and if we can negotiate it and if we don't have to we should lower that percentage ... the whole point of doing this is to put the dollars closest to the kids."
The administrators also responded to the Collins Center's recommendation to decrease the number of Individualized Education Programs by adding and reconfiguring staff for long-term savings.
One recommendation to achieve this, said the Collins Center, was to have a paraprofessional in every kindergarten and first grade classroom.
Plunkett Principal Michelle Colvin said there are paraprofessionals in every kindergarten class and they are in first-grade classes as needed. There are 30 paraprofessionals at Plunkett School and 15 at Cheshire Elementary.
Superintendent Robert Putnam said the report didn't acknowledge that they added paraprofessionals to all kindergarten classes.
Hoosac Valley Principal Jeremiah Ames said one of the biggest needs is more interventionists at the earlier grade levels to provide assistance to kids before they are placed on an IEP.
"If we have those interventionists, we can send a struggling child to them to work on whatever they need help with, which may be able to close the gap without moving to an IEP," Ames said. "It is an upfront cost but it as is close to the front of the educational process we can get."
He agreed with the Collins Center's suggestion that each building have a special education director. He said the director would be familiar with the laws and can help oversee the IEP process or determine if it is really needed.
It would would mean new hires, and any savings would be down the road, Ames said, but with fewer IEPs, the district would not have to hire as many paraprofessionals and could focus instruction more efficiently.
Colvin said a director in each building would lower caseloads for special education teachers and they could better group students where their needs will best be met. She said currently each teacher has a caseload of 20 to 30 kids and direct instruction time is limited.
Colvin said there is also a need for full-time therapists at the elementary school level because many students are in need of more help.
"We have kids that are coming in from extraordinary circumstances," she said. "We are talking about kids coming from trauma and we lack the proper resources to help them."
She said school is seeking grants to help bring in help from the Brien Center.
Rodowicz asked the administrators to put together a plan to lower IEPs and costs, and ways to measure success.
Another recommendation the Collins Center made was to try to retain students by adding vocational programming.
Putnam said he has already met with McCann Technical School about partnering. He said Hoosac Valley High School has the capability to offer biotech courses and engineering courses, which McCann does not offer.
He said the building can support these courses and some staff is qualified to teach them. He also plans to roll out some of this programming next year.
Ames said the high school already offers engineering and programming courses in conjunction with Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
The committee was excited to hear this but members said they wished the school marketed it better.
"Parents need to know this in seventh and eighth grades," Rodowicz said. "Our communities need to know about it ... you need to become shameless braggers."
Rodowicz said they need to outline larger marketing schemes to help retain kids and pull students from other districts.
The committee also addressed teacher absenteeism, which the Collins Center reported was a problem in the district.
Putnam said teacher have 15 sick days and five personal days, some that can accumulate over the years if not used.
Rodowicz said the biggest issue is teachers using sick time as vacation time. She said this, too, should be renegotiated so there are more checks and balances.
The committee also asked to look at decreasing and consolidating stipends and although it did not create a new nepotism policy, found that job applicants have to inform the district if they are related to anyone working for the school district.
It did discover an inaccurate finding in the Collins Center presentation, which reported that Cheshire Elementary School had relatively more per-pupil spending than C.T. Plunkett. The consultants reported that $9,635.42 was spent per student at Cheshire and $6,498.49 per student at Plunkett.
Snyder said these numbers are not actually correct and the per-pupil spending is closer. She said the actual number shows that grant funds and other funds have been applied to Plunkett that the Collins Center did not categorize in their report correctly.
"They had a lot of things categorized incorrectly that I had to point out to them. They kind of just took out the budget and moved it as they saw fit," she said. "There are a few things they grouped as districtwide services where they should really have allocated to individual schools."
She said the actual split is more like $6,580.81 in Cheshire and $6,993.31 in Plunkett.
Putnam said there are a lot of grant dollars aimed at Plunkett because it is the needier school in terms of population. He said the report did not account for many grant-funded positions and programming that balance out the per-pupil amounts.
Snyder said the Collins Center was made aware of this at the last minute but it was too late to change it before the presentation.
Tags: ACRSD, audit & evalu committee, study,
