On April 14, the Mattapoisett Finance Committee met to review the Spring Town Meeting draft warrant and to hear Town Administrator Mike Lorenco’s description and explanation of those articles that raised questions in the minds of the committee members.
“I’m still uncomfortable…” [with the per-pupil cost], said Finance Committee Chairman Pat Donoghue towards the end of the meeting and told attendees that she has researched the escalating per-pupil costs between 2002 and 2020. “In 2008, the per-pupil cost was the same for the high school and the local schools … by 2020, the high school costs had risen 20 percent while the local schools have risen 62 percent.”
Having questioned what had happened at the local schools to make those costs increase at a higher pace than at the high school, Donoghue said that locally she has been told that elementary school costs are higher than high schools. But, she said, her further research did not seem to bear that deduction out. To the contrary, she said discussions with state officials yielded suggestions that the opposite should be the case.
“This is a huge difference,” Donoghue said. “It’s like a feeding frenzy at the elementary schools.”
FinCom member Tom Kelley echoed Donoghue’s confusion in the matter of per-pupil costs, saying, “I’ve done some research also, it’s inexplicable.”
Part of Donoghue’s questioning seems to come from how costs could have continued to climb when, “we eliminated seven classroom teachers, yet there is an explosion of expenses. … I can’t get a good explanation; maybe the numbers are wrong.”
Lorenco’s responses were pragmatic.
“They need time to go through the budget. It needs to be a multiyear approach,” said Lorenco, adding that, even if the school budget was at 0 percent in terms of increases, “you are going to spend most of your budget on schools.”
Kelley said the schools still need to provide a plan for controlling costs. He also wondered aloud in reference to per-pupil expenditures, “Do the townspeople know about this?” Donoghue replied, “No, they don’t.” Lorenco added, “The public doesn’t know a lot about this. Maybe regular meetings with the schools would help, but slashing the school budget for one year won’t fix it.”
There are presently 25 articles in the warrant draft covering highway expenditures at $250,000, tasers for the Police Department at $50,000 and the first phase of police accreditation at $20,000, new littering and dumping bylaws, upgrades to the freshwater systems at $7,500,000 (Mattapoisett’s portion is 20 percent), a variety of water and sewer projects from replacement of the Pearl Street water line to repair and improvements of the Oakland Street sewer system.
The FY23 draft budget now shows local schools at $7,952,394, total town-wide operation expenses at $31,880,274 and estimated total receipts at $32,141,676.
The next meeting of the Mattapoisett Finance Committee is scheduled for Thursday, April 21, at 6:00 pm.
Mattapoisett Finance Committee
By Marilou Newell