East Longmeadow Public Schools

Executive Budget Summary

FY 2008-2009 (Revised 4/22/08, without Utilities)

Dear Members of the Town Appropriations Committee and East Longmeadow Citizens:

We respectfully submit the attached budget on behalf of our 2,941 students in East Longmeadow Public Schools, the School Committee, Administrative Team, and staff for the fiscal year 2009. Town growth continues to have a significant impact on our school system. This year, our school enrollment grew by 27 students- that’s another one and a half additional classes of students. During the past five years we have seen our student enrollment grow by 285 students! The influx of new children into our community creates challenges in meeting the needs of our students while only maintaining the status quo in our schools. East Longmeadow Public Schools has a strategic plan in place to meet the needs of all of our children. We’ve all heard “it takes a village to raise a child”, so it must take a community to support an educational system for all children. School districts are a primary force in residential and commercial valuations. Even in this current real-estate “correction”, East Longmeadow house sales have kept their value!

We are truly appreciative to the Town Appropriations Committee for recommending a budget last year that allowed us to fully fund the exorbitant special education costs that hit our budget last year. Even after the town meeting, we had to use our budget to again absorb NEW special education costs rather than fill requested positions for the new year. This year, within the FY09 budget, you will notice that we have had to budget for special education new costs. These costs hit us this year- so we know we have to budget for them for next year (FY09).

Maintaining existing staffing that is based upon school enrollments, adding budget dollars for fuel oil, purchasing new math curriculum textbooks, and funding athletics (thereby maintaining current athletic user fees) are the district-wide expenditures in FY09 budget. Building specific budget items include hiring two fifth grade teachers (Mapleshade & Mountain View) for our new classrooms, and several other part time additions as you will find in the details section of this document. Finally, please remember that Meadow Brook must care for and educate, by federal law, all special education needs from age three, not from age 6 as most people think. Additionally, our high school must educate special needs students through age twenty-two (federal law).

Once again, the School Committee and administration have spent hours reducing individual and school requests down to essential needs for the town. We do understand we are only part of an entire town budget. However, it is evident that other factors must be included to help control the enormous growth rate our town is experiencing. Planning Board construction regulations, DPW requirements for contractors and new town Bylaws are all needed in this equation to curb the aggressive growth rate that affects our schools.

There are no “wish lists” here, only essential needs. As always, I am available anytime to discuss our budget with you and your committee. On behalf of our School Committee, administration, staff, and students we thank you in advance for your consideration.

Respectfully,

Mr. Robert Mazzariello, Chair Mr. Thomas McGowan, Vice Chair

Mr. Daniel Manley, Mrs. Angela Thorpe

Mr. William Fonseca Dr. Edward W. Costa II, Superintendent
I. INTRODUCTION:

The following information is presented in four sections: Introduction, Organization, Finance, and Information. Each of the sections has pertinent information to the budget for fiscal year 2009.

The Budget Submitted

The enclosed 2008-2009 budget (called the Fiscal Year 09 budget) for East Longmeadow Public Schools reflect the guidelines as stipulated by the Town Appropriations Committee, as well as School Committee budgetary requests. As you can see in the graph below, instructional services, student services, and utilities are the main ingredients you will find in our requests.

The FY09 budget reflects the essential needs of the school district for next year. The school budget is built upon six categorical blocks: Instructional Services, Student Support Services, Maintenance, Utilities, Site Administration, and District-wide Central Office services. The following chart demonstrates the six categories of our FY2009 budget. Please see graph below.

FY09 Budget Categories Graph:

To further dissect our budget, each of the six categories above are charted in depth showing each specific line item and its corresponding cost. Specific line item correlation can be found on page 10.

The Instructional Services category is by far the largest category for any school district. These services include 17 sub-sets of data including: certified teacher salaries, support salaries, special education salaries, library salaries, instructional equipment and repairs, instructional supplies, and special education and vocational tuitions. The FY09 budget includes contractual salary increases for existing instructional staff. In the FY09 budget, you will also see $423,682 of new special education tuition money. New staffing includes two 5^th grade teachers for our new 5^th grade classrooms (one at Mapleshade, and one at Mountain View). Both Mapleshade and Mountain View Elementary Schools have requested a part time Fine Arts Teacher each, which is a full-time position split between them.

Meadow Brook has requested a new half-time Reading Teacher and a half-time guidance Counselor to handle the caseload of students and parents (ages 3-8). Both of these positions already exist part-time, so this simply adds hours to existing positions. Birchland Park has requested a part-time ( 2/10^{th FTE)} Reading Teacher. This part-time position simply adds hours to an existing position currently at BPMS.

The High School is requesting Instructional Supplies and Textbooks for this year. Many of the High School textbooks are old and out of print- in need of replacement and need to adhere to the new Curriculum Framework Standards. Finally, due to the importance of state MCAS testing, and maintaining a 100% graduation rate, we are requesting $115,811 to retool our entire math curriculum for better alignment with the Frameworks.

Please see the chart below.

Instructional Services Graph:

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Student Services include 12 sub-set categories associated with today’s modern student such as: special education supervision, special education and regular education legal services, medical services, guidance services, student technology, psychological services, transportation, athletic costs, student clubs & organizations, and school security. The FY09 budget includes contractual salary increases for existing instructional staff. In the FY09 budget, you will find new requests including a new school Adjustment Counselor for Birchland Park Middle School, and High School athletic dollars to assist in keeping user fees low (student athletic user fees will go up $10 per student/sport, and the School Committee budget will pay $16,234).

Additionally, a Speech Therapist position is needed in our school district so that we will stop paying consultants to do this job. We can hire this position and actually save money in the big picture.

Please see the chart below.

Student Services Graph:

The Schools Maintenance category includes custodial salaries for cleaning and sanitizing the inside of our schools, custodial supplies, maintenance of our grounds (DPW does most of the work, but we must purchase the supplies they use on our grounds), maintenance of our buildings (including hiring contractors to do specialized work that the town does not perform, and maintenance of school equipment that we already own.

Inside the FY09 budget you will find only existing contractual salaries as the sole increase in this category. Please see the chart below.

School Maintenance Graph:

The Utilities category is divided into two main sub-set categories. Electricity, fuel oil and natural gas is now managed by the Town Hall centralized utility process. School Dept utilities include plumbing, phone services, and alarm services.

Please see the chart below.

School Utilities Graph:

The Site Administration category includes contractual principals’ salaries, their office secretary salaries, retirement costs, school office supplies, and building-wide supplies such as report cards, postage, etc.

School Site Administration Graph:

The final category is the Central Office/ District-Wide services. This category contains School Committee expenses, research, salaries for the superintendent, business manager, two central office secretaries, the bookkeeper and payroll clerk, district-wide data processing expenses, district-wide network expenses, and district-wide student management software for state and federal reporting. The FY09 budget includes contractual salaries, for all current staff. No new staff positions have been added to central office since 1999.

Additionally, we have one of the flattest administrative central offices in Massachusetts for school districts. Please note, the national average for Central Office budgets represents 5.5% of the district’s total budget. However, the East Longmeadow Central Office represents only 2% of our budget- less than half the national average- which keeps money in the classrooms where it belongs! Please see the chart below.

Central Office Graphs:

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II. ORGANIZATIONAL SECTION:

East Longmeadow

East Longmeadow Public Schools includes five schools on different campuses. Meadow Brook is our primary elementary school and houses grades Pre-Kindergarten, kindergarten, grades 1 and 2. Meadow Brook also serves special education students from age 3 (federal law). Mapleshade and Mountain View elementary schools house grades 3, 4, and 5. Birchland Park Middle School, built in 2000, houses grades 6, 7, and 8. Finally, East Longmeadow High School houses grades 9, 10, 11, and 12. Together, our five school buildings are currently serving 2,941 students this year within the fourteen square miles of town boundaries in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts. Finance and policy are governed by five elected officials who hold membership in the East Longmeadow School Committee. The budget for ELPS enables the district to accomplish our strategic mission for educating all children. Additionally, the continued growth of our community impacts schools and education on a daily basis. The community of East Longmeadow continues to outpace enrollment projections that are now reconfigured twice a year.

Please see the chart below.

Ten Year Past Enrollments Graph:

Strategic Planning

The ELPS budget is, in part, Chapter 6 of the ELPS Strategic Plan. The ELPS budget is constructed, in part, through the impetus of ten strategic goals directing the expenditure of all moneys, maintenance, and development of programs for 2,941 students and the community of East Longmeadow. The school budget impacts everything we do for children. This is why it is important that all East Longmeadow citizens understand what the budget allows the schools to do for the community of learners.

The East Longmeadow Public School District operates from a set of beliefs established in 1998, and an umbrella mission statement that permeates all endeavors and initiatives of the school district.

Our mission in the East Longmeadow Public

Schools is to promote

Achievement and Accountability

in all endeavors as we educate

today for the challenges of tomorrow.

The East Longmeadow school district has formulated a list of district strategic goals that prioritize the focus of the educational community. This list is developed and reviewed during the summer prior to each school year and approved by the East Longmeadow School Committee. Periodic reports of annual operating goal accomplishments are made to the School Committee and public throughout the school year.

GOAL 1: FOSTER A CLIMATE OF COMMUNICATION AND COLLABORATION
THROUGHOUT THE DISTRICT.

GOAL 2: MAINTAIN A FAVORABLE STUDENT-STAFF RATIO.

GOAL 3: IMPROVE THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT FOR ALL EMPLOYEES.

GOAL 4: PROVIDE A WELL-BALANCED AND APPROPRIATE CURRICULUM
FOR ALL STUDENTS.

GOAL 5: MANAGEMENT OF ALL LEVELS OF THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM
WILL BE PRODUCTIVE, EFFICIENT, AND ACCOUNTABLE.

GOAL 6: ENCOURAGE PARENTS TO BE PARTNERS IN THE EDUCATION OF
OUR CHILDREN.

GOAL 7: ENCOURAGE AND DEVELOP PARTNERSHIPS WITH LOCAL
BUSINESSES AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS.

GOAL 8: PROVIDE A SAFE AND ATTRACTIVE ENVIRONMENT AND
APPROPRIATE FACILITIES FOR ALL STUDENTS AND STAFF.

GOAL 9: CREATE, FACILITATE, AND EVALUATE SITE-BASED SCHOOL
IMPROVEMENT PLANS TO GROW AND EVOLVE WITH THE 
COMMUNITY.

GOAL 10: EACH STUDENT WILL BE ENABLED TO PASS THE MASSACHUSETTS
COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT SYSTEM (MCAS.)

Budget Process

Throughout the year, school site-based budgeting committees work to develop budget priorities for each of our five schools. In October of each year the superintendent and administrative team of the district prioritize total budgetary needs. The budget requests are validated, verified, and documented with rationale and impact from each school. In December of each year the budget document draft is submitted to the School Committee for its review, discussion, modification, and voted approval. By January 10 of each year the formal ELPS Budget Plan is submitted to the Town Appropriations Committee.

On-going meetings are held between the East Longmeadow Public Schools superintendent, administrative team, School Committee, and the Town Appropriations Committee throughout the early spring. During the months of January through April, the School Committee hosts several budget forums for the public to attend. These forums serve to inform the community on the budget process underway. In March of each year, the Town Appropriations Committee and Board of Selectmen hold the annual town budget hearing for the citizens of East Longmeadow. The third Monday in May of each year brings the Annual Town Meeting. During the meeting, the Town Appropriations Committee makes a recommendation to the citizens of East Longmeadow for the educational budget for its community public schools. Please see the itemized chart below comparing the new FY09 budget to the FYO8 budget:

Comparison Budgets Graph:

III. FINANCIAL SECTION: Revised 3/20/08

Please see the attached spreadsheets for “Essential Needs Budget” and “3% Appropriations Budget”.

Please see the 8.5 X 14 size spreadsheets.
IV. INFORMATION SECTION:

Enrollment Projections

East Longmeadow Public Schools uses the cohort survival method of determining future enrollments. This is the standard process used by hundreds of educational planners, including the School Building Assistance Bureau at the State Department. As you can tell by the graph below, East Longmeadow Public Schools not only reached, but exceeded the projections for this current school year with 2,941 students. Additionally, the town continues to grow. Staffing needs and classroom space needs will continue to be an essential need during town growth. As always, the school system is simply a mirror of our community. Housing developments and the sale of farms and acreages to developers will continue to create these needs for our school system. Please see the chart below.

Enrollment Projections Graph:

Birth Year:	Current	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
E.Long. LB:	Year	134	146	161	151	153	153	153	153	153	153
Sch.Year:	2007-08	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
K	183	169	184	203	190	192	192	192	192	192	192
1	205	206	190	207	228	214	216	216	216	216	216
2	205	214	215	198	216	238	223	225	225	225	225
3	220	210	219	220	203	222	244	229	231	231	231
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