Schools

Board of Education Holds Off on Proposals for Resource Officer, Return of Middle School Basketball

2013-2014 proposed BOE budget with 3.45 percent increase headed to Board of Finance.

Deferring plans for a school resource officer and the return of interscholastic basketball at Canton Middle School, the Board of Education voted to endorse a $24,248,510 budget, a 3.45 percent increase over the 2012-2013 approved budget.

The plan now goes to the Board of Finance.

Superintendent of Schools Kevin Case had initially proposed a budget with a 4.82 percent increase.

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Over the last several week’s the Board of Education finance subcommittee worked with school administrators on areas of reduction, said Carlene Rhea, who heads up the subcommittee.

Despite the fact that Case had eliminated $752,000 in requests and faced and $1.2 million increase in contractual obligations, Rhea said the subcommittee quickly came to the decision the town could not support a nearly 5-percent increase.

Find out what's happening in Cantonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“We really quickly decided that it was too much,” Rhea said.

In all, Case came back with more than $300,000 in additional reductions to his proposal.

“None of these were easy decisions,” Case said.

One was eliminating an $85,000 to fund a school resource officer but Case said the district is hoping that with renewed focus on school security that some grant opportunities arise that would allow the school to move forward with the idea.

Other savings included

  • Savings from replacing retiring teachers with less experienced ones — $8,354
  • Holding off on replacement of a Canton High School café gate and Cherry Brook Primary School flooring projects — $40,000
  • Holding off on a proposal to bring back middle school basketball — $8,000
  • Funding 5 paraprofessionals through the Open Choice Grant — $74,000
  • Reducing Curriculum Writing — $5,000
  • Reducing district wide Technology subscriptions (could also include print subscriptions) — $9,700
  • Eliminating a wireless access point — $1,300
  • Eliminating a proposed .4 Full Time Equivalent in Spanish at CIS (would have funded fourth-grade Spanish) — $17,000
  • .8 FTE in District Wide Certified Staff Reductions (Reducing hours of some staff but no layoffs) — $38,996.80
  • Reduction on CHS Extracurricular Stipends (programs to be determined.) — $5,000
  • Reduction to Canton Parents as Teacher Program (With goal of increased revenue) — $20,000 
  • Reductions in Non Certified Staff — $10,211.08

In all, the district next year will have the equivalent of 9 fewer non-certified staff members but in some cases that will involve not replacing people who leave, lessening the impact of potential layoffs, Case said. That has already happened in one case, Case added. 

Despite some tough choices, Rhea said the budget accomplishes three main goals

  • Maintains class size at our current board of education
  • Addresses the new common core standards,
  • Replacing six-year old technology and allots for professional development

Overall, sports funding is up in the proposed budget. 

The proposal, along with that of the Board of Selectmen, will now go before the Board of Finance.

The finance board is set to hear the plans on March 19 and 20.

A finance board public hearing will take place on March 25 at 7 p.m. and town voters either at an Annual budget meeting May 13 or referendum will eventually decide the budget. The vote automatically goes to referendum if petitioned by 150 voters or if the town meeting lacks that number of qualified voters.

See a complete budget timeline here.

In addition, the Board of Education has a few slots left to host coffee house informal budget sessions at private homes.

If you would like to host a meeting, please contact Sue McDonald at the BOE Central Offices 693-7704 or Laurie McKenna at lmckenna@cantonschools.org.

For more on what is included in the budget, see earlier Patch stories or the school district's budget web page


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