With employee health care cost increases looming and state aid in question, it's no wonder that the Board of Education of the South Orange/Maplewood School District was getting an early start on budget discussions for the 2010/2011 school year.

In the public comment portion of the December 20, 2009 meeting of the Board of Education, David Frazer of the Maplewood Citizens Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC) Schools Subcommittee set the tone as he presented suggestions for the Board at the beginning of the budget process.

Suggestions included:

• reviewing the school technology plan and setting reasonable maximums for service and cost,
• revisiting past special education analyses to see if the new inclusion programs were resulting in the projected savings,
• exploring the possibility of outsourcing more support staff functions,
• revisiting the transportation analysis,
• evaluating whether the full-day kindergarten is resulting in savings with early intervention, and 
• looking into solar polar to save on energy costs.

Frazer noted that these were "simply areas for study and analysis, not recommendations." But, with about 60% of Maplewood residents' property taxes going to the school budget, one could see why the CBAC was interested in getting in on the conversation.

Board of Education Chair Mark Gleason later noted that the 2010/2011 budget process would begin in earnest at the January 20, 2010 meeting of the Board, when there would be a presentation of the preliminary budget. The Board then embarked on a discussion of budget issues which Gleason labeled a "precursor to that process."

Superintendent Brian Osborne noted that some of the happy occurences of the last few budgetary cycles--such as the lack of increases in state health care mandates--would not be happening this year, making it that much more difficult to focus the budget on teaching and learning.

"This year, we will have the same priorities but a worse economic situation," said Osborne. He said that the state has overcorrected with health care costs, making them much much higher this year (a projected 25% increase). Osborne also noted that it was hard to predict at this point what will happen with a new state administration coming into office in January.

Osborne was thankful to the communities of South Orange and Maplewood for their support of educational excellence through past budget processes, but noted that "There is an upper limit on the burden our community is willing to shoulder. I'm cognizant of that limit."

Board Administrator Karla Milanette reported on the findings of the Finance Committee on the five major budget areas. The first area, curriculum and instruction, would continue to the be the main focus, said Milanette, with the Board directing as much funds as possible to them. Milanette particularly singled out the new English Language Arts curriculum as "significant" to students' continued achievement.

The second area, operations and maintenance, brought in one of the biggest hurdles of the process with employee benefits taking a significant bite of the budget (12%). Milanette said that the district had been successful in the past in containing costs with outsourcing custodial, security and lunch monitoring services. 

The third area of consideration--special education--was "growing rapidly" and consuming more of the budget, said Milanette. Board members later questioned why this was so. Osborne replied that it was both a function of an increase in students and an increase in the number of students classified with conditions such as autism which need costly intervention.

The district did not yet know if it would continue to receive IDEA funds through the state (fed by Federal stimulus funding) to support the special education inclusion program. This program puts a full-time special education teacher in the classroom with the homeroom teacher and incorporates special education students into the main student body. While measured as more beneficial to the students, this model has proved to be more costly than segregated special education classes, according to the Finance Committee's report--if not supported by IDEA funds.

Osborne also noted that Federal Title I funds supporting summer school activities will be reduced.

In the area of technology, Milanette said the technology plan was trying to keep up with constant improvements, but that technology expenditures for 2010/2011 would be flat as compared to 09/10.

The final area of discussion was enrollment projections. Milanette said that the district's demographer had used live birth data to predict school population. She said that the district population was expected to remain fairly constant overall in the next year, with an increase in K-5 and a decrease in grades 9 to 12.

"We believe there is sufficient space at this time" she said. And that population change didn't "warrant additional construction," but that the district did "need to work on balancing out the schools."

Gleason wanted to talk about the population increases this year. The 2009/2010 school year had seen a 120 student increase. "The demographer did not predict that," said Gleason. "Why should we have faith in the demographer for next year?"

Milanette said that the district had looked at many factors to try to explain the unexpected increase--possible closings of other schools, the economy, the post 9/11 birth rate bubble--but really had no definitive explanation.

Board Chair Mark Gleason concluded the conversation by noting that the Board was going to have to make some "tough choices sooner or later, and sooner is better." He noted, "As we talk about competing priorities and the economic climate, we've managed to steer funds in good ways but we have not slowed the growth of spending though we have slowed the tax impact through aid and cost controls." Gleason noted that the 6%-plus spending rate increases of the district were "unsustainable."