Saugus subcommittee recommends restoring dropped school funds

SAUGUS – The Saugus Schools Finance Subcommittee voted Thursday to recommend restoring several cuts made as a result of Superintendent Richard Langlois’ three-tiered reduction plan.The subcommittee voted to restore $30,000 for a job coach at the high school, $32,000 for full-time custodian and $20,000 for club and adviser stipends.”We can afford it,” said Finance Director Sam Rippin of the stipends. “We’d like to keep students out of the fundraising business.”The extra funding was freed up from the turnover of 25 professional positions throughout the district. Between teachers retiring, leaving the district or not having their contracts renewed, Rippin said the turnover amounts to around 10 percent of the professional staff, which he said is “typical.””When teachers retire, that’s a big driver of turnover savings,” said Rippin. “You hire a teacher at less expense ? so that gives us some capacity to deal with things like this.”The subcommittee also voted to allocate $25,000 to make up for a shortfall in Title 2A funding, which is used for professional development to ensure teacher quality.The original reduction plan resulted from the town level-funding the school’s budget this year. While the district was given the same budget as last year, costs increase by $1.2 million from the previous year due to contractual obligations.Langlois introduced a three-tiered reduction plan to cut $1.2 million from the school’s budget, but the passing of the one-time tax assessment in June gave the schools an additional $700,000.This restored the third and most of the second tier of cuts, which were considered the most severe. However, it was not enough to cover the first tier, which was considered the least severe and included cuts to crossing guards, custodial staff and school busing along with increases in athletic user fees.School busing and athletic user fees were restored earlier in the month after parents spoke out against the cuts, but those items will be funded from the school’s revolving account.The subcommittee held off on restoring the eight crossing guards who were cut, as School Committee Chair Wendy Reed said she would like to take a wait and see approach.”I’d feel more comfortable waiting on the crossing guards until the principals evaluate what they have now,” said Reed. “The needs change with new kids coming from each area so let them evaluate what they need.”Reed said between five and eight crossing guards remain.The full School Committee will vote on the recommendations at its meeting next Thursday.Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter at @MattTempesta.