Saugus supports superintendent

SAUGUS – School committee members, Town Meeting members and parents sided with Saugus Public Schools Superintendent Richard Langlois at a public hearing on Thursday, asking Town Manager Andrew Bisignani to reconsider his recommended budget for the next fiscal year.Members of the community applauded the budget Langlois has set and appealed to Bisignani and the Board of Selectmen to consider the consequences of their decision. The School Committee voted to approve a $26.5 million budget last week, a roughly $2.5 million increase over the current budget of $24,050,250, but Bisignani is only recommending an additional $450,000 for the fiscal year 2011 budget.”I’m a person of circumstances. I’d love to give $2.5 million, but in order to do that, drastic measures must be taken on the town side,” Bisignani said. “Something’s got to give somewhere.”In order to provide the schools with $2.5 million in additional funding, Bisignani said he would be forced to close the Essex Street fire station and lay off six firefighters, 10 police officers and six Department of Public Works employees. He urged those in attendance to consider the budget a “work in progress” and not jump to final conclusions, but Langlois said the issue should be addressed as soon as possible.Langlois said the schools are under the same contractual obligations as other town departments that are receiving enough money to pay for such expenses, but he is not being given the adequate funding to cover them.”I can accept reductions if reductions are equal across the playing field, but they’re not,” Langlois said. “I think we did a fiscally prudent budget. $450,000 is just not adequate.”Although Bisignani and the selectmen said the current budget outline is in no way set in stone, School Committee Vice Chairman Tom Stewart said if the Board of Selectmen recommends the budget, approval by the finance committee will be inevitable.”If you choose to cut the budget as presented to the degree as being presented, you are making a policy decision that you are unable to provide a quality education to our children,” Stewart said.Four of the five school committee members spoke at the hearing, along with multiple Town Meeting members, who agreed the schools cannot continue to improve without proper funding. One member outlined his own plan to utilize other funds, including free cash and the selectmen’s salaries, to help meet the $960,000 bottom line that Langlois said he needs to maintain services; he told the board that as policymakers, it is reasonable for them to make such a commitment.”I know the school committee and school department are trying to be team players,” school committee member Arthur Grabowski said. “But $450,000 is not going to allow us to bring more students back that we’ve lost to other districts.”Bisignani said earlier this week that he would also work on trying to get the department an additional $510,000 to meet the bottom line Langlois outlined of $960,000, but Langlois later said he would need $1.74 million to maintain a level of service budget.The Board of Selectmen will continue the hearing next Tuesday to reach a decision on whether or not to recommend the budget to the finance committee. They must do so by March 1.