FTM Voters Nix Amendment to Add Cash to School Budget

Everybody at Barrington’s Financial Town Meeting Wednesday night seemed to want the same thing – all-day kindergarten in the fall.

But the vote against the amendment to add $633,000 to the school budget will make it more difficult for the School Committee to fund what Chairman Robert Shea Jr. describes as “a strategic initiative” and a “priority.”

The vote on the amendment was 185 to 148 or 55 to 45 percent against adding the extra cash to the Committee on Appropriations-recommended $45.6 million school spending plan. It came with written ballots. 

The vote also kept the tax increase next fiscal year to about 1.1 percent for the total Barrington budget of $59.36 million, including municipal and capital expenses. That boosts the tax rate to $18.20 per $1,000 of assessed valuation.

The vote on the amendment seemed to come down to contentious disagreement over whether the proposed school budget already has enough money in it to fund full-day kindergarten without sacrificing other programs.

Kathy Cadigan, the appropriations committee chair, showed numbers to the town meeting crowd in the high school auditorium that indicate the School Committee can pay for all-day kindergarten and all its strategic priorities within its budget. 

“I feel relief that the right budget passed,” said Cadigan after the three-hour meeting broke up. “I feel confident that all-day kindergarten can be implemented without having to sacrifice anything else. The money is available.”

School Committee Chairman Robert Shea Jr. disagrees. 

“It remains a priority for us,” he said. “But I still don’t think we can do it without hurting other programs.” 

“We’re willing to look,” Shea said. “It’s a strategic initiative. I can’t imagine we would move away from all-day K.” 

Shea said, though, that he was “disappointed in the vote although I respect the process. It’s the will of the citizens.”

He said his biggest disappointment was “the portrayal of the process used to develop the budget” and the “inaccuracies in the Committee on Appropriations’ report.” 

“I think it was a totally inaccurate representation” of the process used by the School Committee to develop its budget for next year, he said, referring especially to a Cadigan comment that COA was kept in the dark on about 90 percent of the spending information it needed until after the deadline.

Shea said: "The COA knew all our assumptions. Did they have the exact numbers? No. But I think the process was as public and transparent as it could be."

The bottom line for the School Committee was that it simply needs more money to fund all of the priorities in its recently completed Strategic Plan – including all-day kindergarten, technology, and additional materials to implement the Common Core standards and to get ready for the new PARCC assessment in two years. 

The COA told the town meeting that it believes the $45.6 million school budget has plenty of money to fund all of those initiatives. It laid out some numbers that definitely seemed to open a lot of eyes and may have swayed some voters.

Scores of voters streamed to microphones to say they feel all-day kindergarten is an absolute must for Barrington. But many of them were befuddled by the duel over the budget and whose numbers were right or wrong. They chose to believe Barrington's number-crunchers.

“We need to have it to help get our kids ready for the world ahead of them,” said Mark Allard. 

“If it's that much of a priority,” said Deb Perugini, “the School Committee should know exactly what it will cost out of the box and get it in the budget first, not last.”

She was referring specifically to the estimated cost of starting it in September -- $633,000. But that number started out at $141,000 as a placeholder in the budget and then swelled after the COA made its decision in April to give the schools a $900,000 increase for next year.

Town Councilor Bill DeWitt asked: “Are there other programs more important to the School Committee than all-day kindergarten? If they’re not, get them out of the budget – not all-day K.”

“By adding more money to the budget,” he said, “we let them defer having the tough conversations. Don’t take them off the hook.”

Cadigan said she feels that with declining enrollment and reduced class sizes at the high school, the size of the staff can shrink. And there are some programs that can be cut as well. The School Committee simply hasn't made that effort, she said, despite being asked to do it many times.

Voters at the Financial Town Meeting approved all but one of the other resolutions, including a bond issue of up to $4 million for repairs to 40 to 50 roads, said Town Manager Peter DeAngelis Jr.

The resolution that failed was to reserve $400,000 of the town’s surplus funds for tax abatements, including for affordable housing.