School Department seeks 9.7 percent increase
By Melissa Muntz Community Reporter

Shrewsbury - The Shrewsbury School Department has requested a fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget of $46.82 million, which represents a 9.7 percent budget increase over FY 2008.

Nearly half of the requested $4.15 million in additional funding is needed to cover contractual increases for existing staff .

More than a quarter of the additional funds would be used for Special Education increases in staff and increased out-of-district tuition costs.

The rest would be needed to cover increases in vocational education costs, transportation, new staff requests and uncharacterized expenses.

Because of several mandated increases in tuition costs and staffing requirements for the Special Education Department, many areas considered budget priorities were not represented in the department's request.

These include decreasing the number of study halls at the High School by increasing the number of elective courses, eliminating parent fees and maintaining class sizes throughout the district.

The state's funding formula that determines how much school districts are reimbursed for Special Education costs has not changed as the number of required staffing, out-of-district tuition rates and transportation costs continue to rise.

That coupled with a recent change in the state's regular education funding formula has required Shrewsbury to foot more of the bill to educate kids, which means the district has had to look for other areas of revenue to maintain as much of the program as possible.

User fees for student athletics, activities, preschool, kindergarten, after-school care and transportation generate close to $2 million in additional funds for the district, which is almost equal to the amount of federal and state grant money that's awarded to the school each year.

Although the School Committee had discussed reducing or eliminating fees in the past, school officials are now saying that it doesn't appear as though that's a possibility.

The School Committee will host two public hearings to discuss the budget, one Wednesday Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m. as part of its regular meeting at Town Hall and the second at Shrewsbury High School Wednesday Mar. 26 at 7 p.m.