LYNNFIELD — Superintendent of Schools Kristen Vogel has proposed a $28.5 million budget for the 2022-23 school year.
Vogel presented the fiscal year 2023 budget to the School Committee on Tuesday night. Joined by Thomas Geary, the school district’s director of finance and operations, and Roberta Keene, the director of student services, Vogel said putting together the plan for the budget was “truly a team effort.”
For this year’s budget, the team asked for about $964,000 more in the upcoming year, which is a 3.5 percent budget increase from last year.
Geary said Lynnfield Public Schools would like to receive $250,000 in capital expenditures for technology upgrades and for the social studies and literacy curriculum at the elementary level.
Some of these technology upgrades include updating mobile devices, upgrading the computer lab in the high school, and increasing server storage.
The special-education department will also be seeing more funding within this budget, as the district has seen more students, and more students with intense needs this past year in special education resulting in a significant increase in the number of out-of-district placements.
“There is an increase in funding with this budget to ensure we meet the needs of as many students as possible,” Keene said.
“As a town, we truly evaluate the needs of every child based on needs and provide those services,” added School Committee Chair Richard Sjoberg.
The school district plans to continue to grow its special-education programs, as well as auditing and looking at programming for students with social and emotional disabilities in the next year to make sure it is offering a continuum of services.
“We have an eye toward having more inclusive programs for children,” Sjoberg said.
Other funding discussed in the presentation was ESSER funds, which are COVID-19 federal-relief funds; these funds are separate from the school budget.
The district received three COVID-19 payouts from the government totaling around $700,000, which is allowed to be spent on anything related to the pandemic.
The first set of funds has already been used on resources, including technology, nursing salaries, social-emotional tutoring, the student-management system, professional development for teachers, cleaning, and air purification.
Geary said he expects the second set of funds to be used by the end of the year. The district has until 2025 to use the third set of funds.
“We are really trying to be thoughtful with gaps we need to fill in areas that need to be addressed coming out of the pandemic,” Geary said.
Vogel said the proposed FY23 budget reflects the district’s priorities for the 2022-23 school year.
“These priorities were identified through the resources-allocation process and encompass the personnel, programs and services needed to provide our students with a high-quality education in the coming year,” Vogel said. “The budget maintains the desired average class sizes and provides the essential services to support students.”
The budget also preserves elective courses, specials, extracurriculars, athletics, and includes a selection of advanced-placement courses and the projected needs of the district.
“We are committed to providing the families of Lynnfield with an educational experience that provides opportunities for our students to develop as successful learners and kind human beings,” Vogel said. “As we created this budget, our priorities were maintaining our desired class sizes, technology, electives, specials, advanced-placement classes, and extracurricular activities and ensuring alignment with our district strategy.”
The budget supports the 30 afterschool clubs and activities and 25 afterschool sports that are available at the high-school level.
As of next year, the METCO program will increase to 44 students from Boston neighborhoods; this increase will also be reflected in the budget.
“Through the reallocation of existing resources, the budget preserves courses, programs and services needed to get every child to their starting line,” Vogel said.
Lynnfield has a graduation rate of 97.5 percent, and 85.7 percent of its graduates attend college. It has 216 teachers and more than 17 members of support staff, who Vogel said are the “heart and soul of Lynnfield Public Schools.”
The next steps for this proposed budget include a public meeting that will be held before the School Committee finalizes and votes on the budget prior to the Town Meeting on May 16.
