Peabody school board approves budget

PEABODY – After over two months of rigorous meetings, Peabody School Committee members finally voted to approve the budget proposal by Superintendent Milton Burnett for the fiscal ’09 school year with his recommended increase cutbacks. And, their vote does not include increasing bus transportation fees after all.The original budget stood at $60.2 million, an amount Mayor Michael Bonfanti was forced to ask the Committee to reduce by a whopping $750,000 due to tight economic times. After thoughtful consideration of each of the 523 line items, Burnett came up with a way to remove almost $650,000 from his original proposal.He provided the committee with a list of his suggested cuts, making it well known that if he could, he’d keep them all. He decided against creating a position for a Guidance Director ($73,984), as much as he finds the position important; discontinuing the Connect-Ed notification system ($23,000); doing without eight technology paraprofessionals ($44,272); and level funding technology contractual services ($80,000), in addition to other cutbacks.However, it seemed the only option to meet the remaining $100,000 in cuts was to increase bus fees, much to everyone’s dismay. At their last meeting, Burnett suggested raising the transportation bus fees from $100 to $125, with a $250 family cap. Doing so, he argued, would bring in $50,000 to offset the budget increases. He would gamble the other $50,000 with Special Education out-of-district tuition, a move he feels confident about.Committee member Dave McGeney came to Tuesday night’s meeting with a different outlook, one that was voted unanimously upon by his fellow board members. McGeney motioned the Committee not to increase transportation fees, but to instead plan for bigger savings in terms of salaries for newer teachers replacing top earning teachers who are retiring.”I’d like to see revenue expectation up $20,000,” he told the committee, adding that Peabody underestimates the amount every year. He also motioned the committee to expect more from the government aide in terms of Circuit Breaker money used for Special Education.”It’s a risk,” he openly admitted. “But it’s a reasonable risk.”The total gamble would cover the costs of bus transportation increases ($50,000), with an additional cushion of $4,000.”I think it’s a gamble we can do,” said Burnett, offering his opinion at the request of School Committee member Ed Charest.School Committee member Beverley Ann Griffin Dunne voted against the budget because she wanted more time to look at other options. However, with the clock ticking and City Council looking to hold a public hearing on the matter before the end of the month, Bonfanti urged the others to move the process along with his promise to look into specific areas of concern: the lack of a Guidance Director and using a teaching assistant principal at the Welch School.”We need to set some priorities,” he told the committee. “We can’t have everything?We’ve been very fortunate to this point.”