By Scott Smyers
There was a presentation about the upcoming school budget by the School Administration to The Finance Committee on October 10, 2023. At the next meeting, October 24 after hearing more information at the Acton Leadership Group (ALG) meeting, the FinCom had a long discussion about this topic. They discussed a rule of thumb for whenever there is a chance for an override, those proposing it should “socialize” the idea with the community a year before the request.
At the School Committee meeting on October 19, John Petersen (former SC Member) read a statement during the public comment period. In his comments, Petersen focuses on expenses related to Minuteman Tech, but there is a lot more to the school’s budget. Overall, he says,
. . . this will be a painful budget year.
For more details on the recent ALG meeting Petersen referred to, see this link.
This coming Thursday, November 2, 2023, the School Committee will present more details on the proposed budget.
Acton has been designated an Emergency Migrant Shelter and the Minuteman Inn on Hosmer Street and Route 2 will be the home to over 30 families, some of which have children that will be attending Acton Boxborough Schools. Peter Light provided an update on October 19, but there is more information coming at the upcoming meetings and parents and taxpayers have many questions.
Acton joins approximately 90 other communities from Hadley to Concord (the old Best Western on Elm Street), each forced to accept migrants without providing details to the community on immigration status, possible criminal or health/immunization risks. However, each host community is expected to provide for their needs including food, shelter, medication, transportation, jobs, child care and education. The State of MA apparently will reimburse some of these expenses, but not all. Concord-Carlisle is much further along in the process and has relied on charity and partial reimbursement from the Commonwealth. Concord-Carlisle has gained 30 preschoolers and their District has been forced to bus students out of district at great expense.
When the Massachusetts Emergency Family Shelter System reaches capacity, people will be wait-listed and could be forced to live in the streets wherever they choose including near existing shelters. The System is expected to reach statewide capacity (7,500 migrants) on November 1.
Please consider attending the upcoming School and Finance Committee meetings to stay informed and ask questions.
Town Meeting members may recall a proposed amendment to the school budget at the May 2022 TM, which would have reduced Acton’s assessment by $1.26M. This was Acton’s share of the $1.5M of the budget coming from E&D (the district’s rain day fund). The points made were that the district was relying on the rainy day fund for ongoing operations and that the budget gave no consideration for runaway inflation (it was ~8.5% at that time). I pointed out that the ALG was projecting a shortfall of $5.3M in FY26. Turns out it’s much worse.
Obviously, all three of our primary town committees dismissed the concerns raised when that amendment was proposed — that this rate of budget growth was unsustainable.
In order to sell an override, the committee must demonstrate:
– they’ve been good stewards of taxpayer funds;
– they have a good plan for why they need the funds that an override would provide;
– they’ve exhausted all other options to close the budget gap.
They fail the first test, without question. Typically, overrides are “socialized” a year before the actual request. Of the $7M shortfall, $4.6M is salaries. How could district leadership not have seen this coming? They have negotiated contracts, for crying out loud. There is simply no excuse for waiting until seven months before the next Town Meeting, when there is so little time for a course correction without causing a good deal of pain.
On the second point, clearly they have plans for our money. But it may not be aligned with taxpayer priorities. Do we need to spend $2M on free all day kindergarten for primarily dual-income families? Do we want them to continue to push a radical progressive social agenda on our kids? Do we want chromebooks for every student, even without any demonstrated benefit to educational outcomes (never mind the documented harms)?
On the third point, until they’ve scrubbed every line of the budget and gotten rid of all of the nice-to-haves (as defined by our a school committee in the capture of left-wing groupthink), they have no business asking for such an outrageously high increase in the budget.
This is what happens when our boards are packed with financially illiterate men and women bent on pushing their personal agendas rather than representing the best interests of the town. I hope this issue is a wake-up call to the community.
As for Emergency Migrant Shelters – the immigrants should not be in the country in anywhere near the numbers they are, numbers that cannot smoothly assimilate into the U.S. population in the near term. The shelters are, at this point, an unfortunate and expensive necessity. Democrats have handed migrants and citizens of this country a tragedy. This, the increase in fentanyl deaths, and non-vetting of persons entering the country are the result of a failed effort by Obama/Clinton stalwarts pulling the strings behind the scenes, and a crooked and incompetent puppet as President. This is yet another Democrat problem caused, in this case, by their hatred for all that was Trump. Finally, we have gotten around to completing border fencing (after selling some of it at a price, I am sure, much less then we will pay to replace it) and securing our southern boundary – unfortunately many millions of illegals too late. I feel for the migrants who have taken on a long-and-treacherous march to find a better opportunity, one which might be imaginary given the number of illegals coming to this country in a very short time frame, and indebting themselves to the cartels, to find work and a better life. Our boundaries, both north and south, remain porous. Fentanyl and components continue to pour in, not only from our borders but also directly from China. We continue to be dependent on foreign players for everything from oil to drugs with no apparent effort to correct the situation. Great job our current administration is doing.
As to the over-budget school costs, I am pleased that John Petersen, whose insights I greatly respect, has once again raised issues related to the run-away Minuteman budget. As with the A/B budget, there is little town selectmen or FinCom can do to adjust the costs or cost sharing. By regionalizing we, in large part, gave away our ability to adjust school budgets. If I am reading the stats correctly, at slightly under $33K in total expenditures per student in 2021, Minuteman is clearly out of control (Nashoba Valley Voc. is $20.6K on the same basis). Perhaps the time has come to sever our relationship with Minuteman and take our lumps. Costs are increasing in the A/B schools as well as in Minuteman. My guess is that some of this is due to the “free” money (as if anything is free) handed out over the past few years, now drying up, which went to recurring costs the A/B system does not want to cut back on. Again, if I am reading the charts correctly (using school and district profiles by DESE) 2021 A/B budget is up 9.5% from 2020 – certainly not sustainable. That said A/B total expenditure per student is less than many I would consider peers. If we continue increasing at current rates, however, that statistic may be fleeting.
I would guess Acton municipal budgets are also impacted by some of the “free” money being liberally splashed around over the past few years. That money is now pretty much depleted. Perhaps it is time for A/B, Minuteman and the town to tighten their belts. Is this the time, while facing an override, to be building a new DPW facility? Acton real estate tax is in the top rung of Massachusetts municipalities. An override will boost the tax more than usual and create hardship for seniors on fixed incomes – Social Security certainly is not keeping pace with our tax bills. With prices rising at an alarming rate, most Acton citizens will have to tighten their belts. Why not our government? I hope FinCom will finally hold our administrators’ feet to the fire. There is nothing wrong with FinCom taking an opposing view in town meeting regarding finances, and perhaps Actonians will listen.
Bob Hertz