Preliminary Swampscott school budget gets green light

SWAMPSCOTT – The School Committee approved Superintendent Matthew Malone’s recommended budget and sent it to the Board of Selectmen this week.Town bylaws require the School Committee to submit a budget to the town by Feb. 15, but it does not require that the budget be balanced.School Committee Chairman David Whelan said the district submitted a $23,035,556 budget, which the town has already said it could not fund.”It puts us in the hole by more than a million dollars,” he said. “The town has already said it is giving us $21,980,000 – a difference of $1,055,555.”Whelan said the School Committee plans on outlining $1 million in cuts at a future meeting.”As a School Committee, we haven’t had a chance to discuss cuts so we submitted the educationally sound budget,” he said. “We have no plans to ask for an override. People will have an opportunity to see what a zero deficit budget looks like.”Malone’s budget includes a district wide all-day kindergarten program, which will be paid in part by state grants and an increase in Chapter 70 funds.In addition to the money required to maintain the current level of services, Malone said his recommended budget includes more than $350,000 for new programs and other new expenses.His budget assumes all fifth grade students would move to the middle school, freeing up three classrooms in the elementary schools so the budget approved by the School Committee includes hiring three new elementary school teachers to reduce class sizes.His recommended budget also includes assistant athletic directors for the high school and a part-time middle school secretary. Under programming increases, Malone added $20,000 for snow removal and $12,740 to maintain the field house in Blocksidge Field. Malone said the budget approved by the School Committee does not include money to mothball the Greenwood Avenue facility because the Finance Committee asked him to discuss turning the property over to the town.