Kostan swings ax at school budget

LYNN – Admittedly facing the worst budget situation he has ever seen, Superintendent Nicholas Kostan took the first swing of the ax Wednesday night, splintering two community schools, several programs and over 160 jobs in his first draft of the fiscal 2009 budget.In working with Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. and School Business Administrator Kevin McHugh over the past several weeks, the Superintendent and his staff identified an official budget gap of $6.43 million next year, and drafted a frugal spending plan to try and alleviate the shortfall.Kostan listed five school and program cuts, including closing the Washington Elementary School, Fallon Elementary School, MAST program and the O’Keefe School, and significantly reducing programming and staff at the Career Development Center, combining it with Lynn Alternative High School.Job cuts will affect 124 total teachers, 50 at the elementary school level, 28 middle school, 20 high school and 26 alternative program teachers, along with 15 administrators, 14 paraprofessionals, 13 clerks, four lunch aids, one monitor, one building substitute and one special education job coach.Of the 124 teacher positions, Kostan said 26 would be the result of school closings, approximately 30 would come via retirement and 35 would come from the release of uncertified and unlicensed teachers currently working within the district.The decision to close the two elementary schools was made based on enrollment figures, which have been down significantly in recent years. Kostan provided statistics for both schools showing a decrease from 424 students at the Washington in 2000 to 218 this year, and 189 students at the Fallon in 2000 to 135 this year.Kostan said the Fallon School has the smallest enrollment of any school in the city, the majority of who are from outside of the school’s neighborhood district.If the two schools are closed, Washington students would be redistricted to either the Cobbett or Connery Schools, while Fallon students would attend Sewell-Anderson, Lincoln-Thompson or Tracy, depending on where they live.Staff from the Fallon would be transferred to other district schools in an effort to reduce class size.The Washington School would house the special education programs currently held at St. Steven’s Church and O’Keefe School, allowing the department to save $60,000 on the church lease and close the O’Keefe building.The Superintendent was most disappointed in the reduction of the Career Development Center, which has been one of the most successful programs in the city over the last few years. Under the new budget plan, the district would move Lynn Alternative High School from the JB Blood Building on Wheeler Street and combine it with the CDC at the Fecteau-Leary Building.The move would result in a drastic reduction of student enrollment at the CDC, leaving 45 students out of the program, and force the two schools to combine staff at the cost of approximately 26 jobs.”Cutting the CDC is probably the worst cut that we had to make. They are all bad, but that one was extremely painful,” said Kostan, visibly disappointed in the cut. “I want to try and keep a good piece of this program together in a collective effort with the Alternative High School so that we can re-build down the road.”While the cuts are deep and significant, the department did succeed in preserving the athletic and fine arts programs, cutting only $100,000 from the athletic budget, and avoided charging students user fees for any extra curricular activity.Kostan’s presentation represented only the first draft of the budget, and all proposals are subject to change. The school Committee will review a line-by-line breakdown of the budget and hold several future meetings before making any vote.