Marblehead committee OKs $29.5M school budget

MARBLEHEAD – Superintendent of Schools Greg Maass barely made it to Thursday?s School Committee hearing on his first school budget.He and School Committee Chairman EuRim Chun divided their time Thursday between the School Committee meeting and negotiations with the teachers? association, which were continuing in another classroom at Marblehead High.There were no speakers during the public hearing and the committee unanimously approved Maass?s $29.58 million Fiscal 2013 level services school budget, a $445,700 or 1.6 percent increase over the current year.After the hearing concluded, committee member Dick Nohelty thanked the taxpayers of Marblehead. “It?s their money that we?re using,” he said.Maass noted during the discussion that the budget includes $475,700 in previously negotiated raises.It also contains a $915,670 shift in resources to cover what Maass calls needed changes in school priorities, including the hiring of three new administrators, an assistant superintendent for curriculum, a human resources director and a technology supervisor. Maass began searching for those vacancies after he and Interim School Business Manager Kevin Meagher got preliminary committee approvals for the shifts, which include downsizing the positions of METCO coordinator and fine arts curriculum director from full-time positions to part-time. The new positions are about one-third of the total shift amount. The METCO reduction will be used to cover the cost of tutors for that program.Maass noted that his discussions with METCO Coordinator Francois Fils-Aime are on-going and changes in that area and the new administrator salaries could still occur.Earlier in this year?s budget deliberations, Nohelty praised Maass and Meagher for their ability to “do more with less.”