Marblehead gains $43G for school dept. budget

MARBLEHEAD – Superintendent of Schools Paul Dulac got some good news from the Finance Committee Tuesday night about next year’s proposed school budget.Going into the FinCom meeting, the Fiscal 2009 school budget proposal was $26.656 million – the amount approved by the School Committee March 20. That amount was essentially unchanged from the proposal Dulac put forth Jan. 31. It is his first school budget in Marblehead.The FinCom added $43,000 in additional state aid to that amount, making the new total $26.699 million.Dulac will use the additional money to hire an extra Grade 5 teacher to address expected class size problems in the fifth grade next year. “Our first priority if we received additional money was to decrease class size,” Dulac said.When he presented his budget proposal to the School Committee, Dulac noted that the schools absorbed 100 additional students this fall without seeking more money. If more students enter the schools next fall – if the economic downturn forces the return of private school students to public school, for example – “We are very full and very tight and any changes at all may have an impact on this budget,” he said.This year’s school budget is playing second fiddle to several school capital projects, which the School Committee will discuss in detail tonight. They include heating replacement and other improvements at the Marblehead Village School, health-and-safety-driven repairs to the Gerry School, funding for the feasibility phase of the Glover School project and system-wide security improvements and technology needs.During the March 20 budget hearing the only speaker was David Harris, vice chairman of the FinCom, who praised Dulac and the School Committee for keeping the school budget within the limits of Proposition 2 1/2 and helping the town to avoid an override for the third year in a row.”This will put us in a good situation in future years,” he said.School Committee member Rob Dana pointed out that Marblehead is below the state average for per pupil expenditure. He said he would like to see more money in the school energy reserve account. “I don’t want the committee to have to cut positions to pay the energy bill,” he said.Dulac told the committee he has the easiest budget job: making the decisions. “Teachers and principals have been dealing with frozen budgets for three years in a row,” he said.