Okay Tolland, let’s talk budget!
Ugh, I know, it’s the same every year: those crazy education supporters who think we can just raise the budget every year and then don’t show up at the polls; the staunch “no” voters who will come out to vote no even on a 0% increase. The Superintendent who drowns us in numbers every year hoping the public will understand the bind he’s in and the services he’s trying to provide. The Town Manager telling us that what number he thinks will pass at referendum; telling us what “we can afford” based on his expert analysis. The 16 volunteers on the Town Council and Board of Education with varying levels of expertise trying to take it all in and make “good” decisions, usually through whatever lens they brought to the table with them.
How can we get off this merry-go-round?! What would substantive, respectful conversation about the real problems look like? Can't we address the real problem of costs outpacing revenues without demeaning our neighbors and employees of Tolland? There are consequences for cutting to a number without truly vetting the cost of doing so. Granted, many factors influence a municipal budget... far too many of them are outside the influence of local officials. I will raise some of those factors in future posts. Today, I want to pose some questions about Cost and Value whose answers are difficult to quantify and therefore get short shrift in our debate.
- What is the cost of failing to develop young readers in the early grades?
- What is the value of having a well-trained, at-the-ready, Fire Department?
- What is the cost of having town and school employees who consistently hear the message that we have faith that they will continue to deliver --- even when we fail to provide appropriate resources for them to do so? Is that supposed to be compliment?
- What is the value of co-curricular activities in a student’s education? What was their value to you when you were in school?
- What is the cost of failing to wisely and consistently invest in technology? building maintenance? affordable housing? open space? training of elected officials?
- What is the value of raising a generation of critical thinkers and innovators and engaging them in a complete, well-rounded education that allows them to develop those skills?
- What is the cost of elevating affordability as a priority over property value? How can we maintain both?
- What is the value of developing a budget in an environment where we can talk about substance as well as numbers?
- What is the cost of raising a generation of children whose public role models stake out positions at the extremes and are never seen developing consensus, compromising, or sacrificing for the greater good?
Okay, Tolland, let's talk about the kind of community that we want to be.
As for my posting name, there have been several discussions about the need for maintaining personal security when posting online. I have been "Jim G" since my first posts here, post under no other name and wouldn't dream of disavowing anything I've said here... but I do choose to firewall my posts here from my private life. Since the numbers 24 and 1260 mean nothing to you, I can see why you'd disagree.
I don't even know how to compare an operation that assumes responsibility for 3000 people for a minimum of 8 hours a day (including bus time) 183 days a year to anything in the business sector. I would have loved to serve on the BOE that uncovered all the waste that people talk about, but I never did find it. So, I am sincere in my request for a better understanding of where you think the waste is.
I've have always believed in the value of sports in teaching leadership, teamwork, and graceful winning and losing in ways that are nearly impossible in a classroom. Couple that with the community spirit they engender and the potential for building lifelong fitness habits and I am surprised that people outside of the "sports community" aren't more supportive of maintaining them in the budget.
The 2011/2012 budget summary shows the breakdown on page 2 of http://www.tolland.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Budget-Message-and-Summary1.pdf for the current budget breakdown which is 68.74% BOE, 21.35% Town, 9.42% Debt Service (a large amount of this is for school construction), and 0.49% Capital Improvement. Even if you wanted to add all the Debt Service to BOE, the total is 78.16%. I just want to be sure we talk about actual numbers when we have these discussions. Regards, Josh
I would suggest we take a look at the positions within the BOE budget that are not directly related to classroom teaching. How many administrators and coordinators do we have and where. Take a look at the trend in staff in this category compared to the trend in teaching and para positions, then correlate that to test score trends. There is a direct correlation to reduced teachers and paras to reduced test scores. It's not rocket science - run this enterprise like a business - make good investment decisions.
I do agree that any expansion of administration staff should be given the hardest scrutiny; the tendency in any bureaucracy is to keep adding "thinkers" over "doers," because the thinkers are in charge. On the other hand, a certain ratio of oversight to action is needed, and it is just as big a mistake to have too few managers and too many workers - in that case, tasks that should be centralized get devolved to inefficient and redundant levels and bog down those who should be "doing" more. So don't take it as an absolute that no additional administration slots are needed, especially after years of cutbacks.
But, I guess I will ask, are people waiting for a catastrophic failure? What impact would that have on today's students? Would you want to be the class that went through THS without the Eagles ever taking the field? What talent would we miss if we let a class of students go through without exposing them to music and art and world languages? What is the compounding effect of children leaving Birch Grove without the reading skills that are so essential to their success in the upper grades??? People are working everyday to prevent these things from happening in Tolland, but as resources get thinner and thinner every year something will have to give. The list of impacts of the budget is much longer and is more articulately described by the folks trying to deliver the services. What I can tell you as a parent and former BOE member is that student success and opportunity is being effected right now, today, as you read this but the district has failed to communicate this in a way that resonates with voters. What do people need to know to understand what is going on?
http://www.sde.ct.gov/sde/cwp/view.asp?a=2618&q=322592 New assessments will replace the CMTs and the material tested will be different and/or be taught in different grades thank it is now. Making sure our curriculum in all areas lines up and teaches the specified subjects in the specified order is going to be a labor- and time-intensive endeavor without question.
More specifically, "fancy gadgets" and so forth don't add much to teaching or learning... but they are a relatively small part of the budget. The big expense, the one that keeps growing at many times the rate of the economy, is personnel - and schools are fundamentally a teacher on one end of the log and a student on the other. With no way to rein in things like health insurance costs (and fuel-based costs like most maintenance and supplies), we either increase the budget to match reality or cut staff... and there are no more staff to cut. The "fancy stuff" is mostly attempts to leverage staff time and ability at a cost far less than adding more teachers or administrators. It may not work. It may be useless, even. But it's not what's pushing the costs beyond our desired limits.
I see no reason curricula need to be revamped every few years, in ever-tighter lock with tests that show nothing except that the schools have taught the test material. We need to stop trying to accommodate the mass dumbing-down and regimentation of what's taught - the purpose of which is ONLY so that upper administration and legislators can "see results" that ultimately mean nothing.
It sounds like by "step back" you mean go back to a time when things weren't so expensive -- if things came with a 1980s price tag we could certainly pay for them in 1980s dollars, but they don't. Our teachers do indeed take advantage of low or no cost teaching tools. In fact I was volunteering (there are LOTS of volunteers in our schools, especially at the younger grades) in a fourth grade class a while back and listened as the teacher turned the Sunday Kohl's flyer into a lesson on percentages, complete with differentiation --- more advanced kids got harder sale prices to figure out. It was smart, fun and free. But, schools have a responsibility to teach students with tools that they will need to use in this workplace --- we can't stick with an abacus when students need to know how to get around in Excel.
How about we take up the mantra of paying for what we need instead of what we want?
I believe that's exactly what we have. Neither the town nor the BOE is foolish enough to try and pad the budget with a single item that's not defensible on need. How about if we vote as a community instead of as individuals, instead?