The West Springfield School Committee has adopted a fiscal year 2012 $34.9 million budget that would fund the current level of School Department services.
WEST SPRINGFIELD – The School Committee Tuesday adopted a fiscal year 2012 School Department budget of $36,490,829, the spending needed to maintain the current level of services in the city’s public schools.
That spending plan is 4.62 percent higher than this year’s School Department budget of $34,878,679. In opting to maintain the current level of services, School Committee members rejected proposals to level fund the budget, reduce it by 5 percent or reduce it by 10 percent.
Those scenarios were outlined by School Superintendent Russell D. Johnston along with the layoffs and other cutbacks that would result should they be implemented.
“I think anything less than a level of services budget is unacceptable,” School Committee member Carm Santaniello said before casting his vote.
School Committee member Nancy M. Farrell said adopting the level-of-services budget would be the best thing to do.
The committee voted 6-1 to take that action, with Mayor Edward J. Gibson, the board’s chair, casting the sole dissenting vote.
Gibson reminded the committee that the budget will have to be borne by the city’s taxpayers.
A fiscal year 2012 spending plan funded under the governor’s proposed fiscal year 2012 budget would have to be level funded, Gibson said. He urged people to lobby their state legislators to keep Chapter 70 aid to education as well as discretionary aid level-funded, otherwise , he said, the city will have to look at a less than level-funded School Department budget.
About 60 people attended a public hearing on the proposed budgets before the regularly scheduled School Committee meeting at which the vote was taken.
Noting that economic times are tough both in Massachusetts and around the country, Jennifer J. McCormick of Upper Beverly Hills said, “Education is an area where we need to show restraint in in our decision-making....I plead with you to be as responsible as the law will allow.”
“I urge you to at least level fund,” Margaret G. L. Thacher of Sagamore Road said. “Our school budget tells our kids that they are important.”
Thacher said skimping on education can result in having to spend more money in the future to deal with adults who are uneducated.