Jeanette Deforge did a nice job on a story today about the schools that I would like to share with you.
The good news for laid off teachers and for the parents is Sullivan is gone on January 4th. At that time, hopefully the City Council and new Mayor can develop a reasonable compromise for some additional funds for our schools. I have also explained to some of the school committee members that one of the conditions for extra funds requires that they fufill their prior commitment to move their headquarters out of Suffolk Street and into Lawrence School. This will save $400K. That alone could pay for 8 teachers.
In a related development, Mayor Sullivan setup the hiring process for the new Superintendent so that we have the new one being trained by Mr. Carballo and the city will incur an additional 6 months salary. Why would we want to hire a new Superintendent who is so lacking in skills as they actually need to be trained by their predecessor? This is the first I have ever heard of this in any job. This would be like Sullivan staying for 6 months to train the new Mayor.
Mayor Sullivan has raised our tax levy $20 million a year since he took office resulting in $110 million in additional taxes over his tenure yet cannot manage his budget so as to avoid layoffs. Our children suffer by increased class sizes and the situation is unaceptable. Unfortunately, he will not listen. As your fiscal watchdog, I will continue to demand better of our city government and in just a few short months will work closely with the new Mayor to hopefully turn this trend around.
Holyoke board wants more teachers
Sunday, October 18, 2009
By JEANETTE DeFORGE
jdeforge@repub.com
HOLYOKE - The School Committee has been forced to return $900,000 to the city, but School Committee members are hoping to receive some extra money to hire more teachers.
Current programs or teachers will not have to be cut more because the money that was returned was never allocated to be spent in this year's $76.6 million budget, said Patricia A. Cavanaugh, executive director of finance and operations for the school department.
The funding formula set by the Education Reform Law of 1993 requires each community to spend a certain amount of money on schools, which is a percentage of the amount of state assistance. Since Holyoke is one of the poorest communities in the state, 90 percent of the school budget is funded with state assistance.
This year when the amount of state assistance proposed by the House was later cut by the Senate, the amount of money the city had to contribute was also reduced.
In a recent School Committee meeting, members said they are still encouraged by requests from the City Council to submit information about class sizes and the number of teachers who were laid off this year.
The request was proposed by City Council member Kevin A. Jourdain, who said he was concerned about large class sizes he is seeing in his children's classrooms at Lt. Clayre P. Sullivan School. He said he might support adding money into the school budget to decrease class size.
"Class sizes are crazy. Now we have a way to get teachers and paras (paraprofessional teaching assistants) back to the schools," said Dennis W. Birks Jr.
But Mayor Michael J. Sullivan, who also serves as School Committee chairman, said the City Council does not have the authority to allocate money for the schools or any other place.
The city charter says only the mayor can propose an allocation. The City Council must accept the proposal for it to happen. It can also reduce the allocation or reject it.
Sullivan said he will not support any requests to spend additional money on the schools. He said he would object to taking money from the city's about $9 million savings account, saying there is no way to sustain the amount so it would just cause more cuts the next year.
"There is no money," he said.
Additionally, revenue for the state is much lower than predicted and the governor has warned cities and towns they may see mid-year budget cuts, Sullivan said.
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