Brewster School System’s Budget Cuts Many Positions
The Brewster Board of Education adopted the school district’s proposed $99 million budget for the 2018-19 school year, which resulted in the elimination of more than a dozen full-time positions.
During the April 10 meeting, school officials explained that a lack of state aid funding and a significant increase in health insurance, pensions and debt was to blame for the loss of 18 positions throughout the district. Board president Dr. Stephen Jambor said at the beginning of the meeting that the board needed to close a roughly $363,000 gap before the budget could be adopted.
Superintendent of Schools Valerie Henning-Piedmonte insisted that reducing an additional seven positions on top of the 11 already proposed in the budget would close the gap. She added that eliminated positions would be based on retirements and resignations.
“None of these are positions we want to freely give up,” Henning-Piedmonte said. “We can make a compelling case for every position on this list, but the reality is we need to close a fairly large budget gap. This is not a decision we want to make.”
The high school will see a reduction in social studies, special education, world language, and ENL. The board also approved to dismiss the assistant principal position along with two science teachers. The middle school will lose an English and social studies teacher, along with an ENL teaching assistant.
CV Starr Intermediate will lose a third and fifth grade classroom teacher and a social worker. Five district wide aides have also been eliminated.
While parents in attendance spent nearly three hours commenting on the budget, several stressed students would be most hurt by the loss of the two science teachers at the high school. While the board struggled to eliminate the positions, they agreed the reduction presented an opportunity to restructure the science department.
“I think that certainly this is an opportunity to look at how to increase the offerings and to refresh the offerings so that we are not focusing on test prep, but we need to focus on engaging students to love science,” Henning-Piedmonte said.
She added that the district wide reductions would result in larger class sizes, but said they would comply with board policy.
The budget, which is tax cap compliant, contains a budget-to-budget increase of $3.6 million, or 3.75 percent, over the current year. Under the approved budget, Brewster would see a 2.22 percent tax levy increase, along with a 2.9 percent increase in state aid.
Under the adopted budget, spending on salary will rise 0.6 percent with employee benefits increasing 4.3 percent. Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Victor Karlsson explained the increase to employee benefits is due to an 8.5 percent hike in the teachers’ retirement system and a 3.7 percent rise in health insurance premiums.
He added that the district is insuring more employees next year than previous years.
General support will increase 2.9 percent due to a higher operations and maintenance budget. Transportation will rise 2.4 percent with civic activities decreasing 7.0 percent. Debt services will jump 14.0 percent. Karlsson explained that the increase is due to district payments on capital improvement projects.
Karlsson added $1 million would be transferred to the capital fund for a paving project at JFK.
Along with the budget, voters will also be presented with a $754,000 proposition for school bus replacement.
The state mandated budget hearing will be held on May 5, with the annual statewide budget vote and school board election scheduled for May 15. For further information on the budget, visit www.brewsterschools.org/.
