Lynn school board approves budget

LYNN – The School Committee Tuesday night voted 5-2 to approve the FY’11 $106 million school budget that will not force any layoffs, but will leave five school libraries without librarians.Last spring as the committee struggled to balance the school budget, they decided to cut seven full-time school librarians. Two of the library positions at the Connery and Harrington schools have since been funded and the other five employees have been shifted to other jobs, but the loss of the librarians has been difficult for some educators to accept.Committee members Donna Coppola and Maria Carrasco, both of whom voted against the budget, led an 11th hour effort to save the librarian jobs by proposing cuts from other items in the budget.”I have grave concerns about the librarians,” said Coppola, who added that a staffed library is an essential part of a school community.Coppola suggested using money that was earmarked for teacher training to put the librarians back on the school payroll and Carrasco felt the committee should take another look at leases for computer equipment.But those items were part of negotiated contracts and could not be cut. Coppola also suggested using $300,000 budgeted for new books to fund the librarian jobs, but other committee members did not support that idea.The committee also explored the possibility of keeping the librarians and filling any budget holes with part of the $3.9 million in financial aid that Lynn will receive from the state’s Education Jobs Fund.That aid, which was announced last week by Gov. Deval Patrick, is targeted toward keeping teachers in classrooms.However, school Superintendent Catherine Latham hopes to stretch those funds over this year and next, and was reluctant to commit any money to keeping the librarians on staff because she may still face other, more serious staff challenges.”I have seven hot spots in elementary schools where class sizes are 30-31-31,” said Latham.Although Latham was still working on enrollment figures and waiting lists for particular schools, she said that classes with more than 31 students would need to be split and new teachers would have to be hired.”My heart is with the librarains, and if I can put them back in, I’m going to do it,” said Latham. “They are a priority for me.”Still, Latham did not feel spending part of the $3.9 million in state aid for staffing the school libraries was a sustainable plan because the funding would last for only one year.”In the long run I can put back a vice principal and use that money to support the teachers we put on with ARRA money,” said Latham, referring to teachers who were hired with stimulus money.