IPSWICH — Longtime observers can only remember one time voters have acquiesced to such a request in 25 years, and then it was a choice between paying for curbside trash pickup or adopting a pay-as-you-throw trash policy.
But school supporters say this year's proposal is critical and have begun lobbying for a $1,491,000 Proposition 21/2 override that would restore teaching positions and programs pared from next year's budget.
If they're successful, it would be historic. Although voters have been willing to pay for things like new schools, they've been stingy about increasing the operating budget. No such override of the state-mandated 2.5 percent tax-increase limit has been approved since the inception of Proposition 21/2 more than 20 years ago.
The School Committee unanimously approved the request proposed by Superintendent Rick Korb last week.
Among the highlights:
r $350,000 to restore the equivalent of 6.3 full-time teachers dropped from next year's budget. This would restore the fourth-grade instrumental music programs in both elementary schools.
r $61,000 for elementary and secondary library teaching assistants. This would allow the elementary school libraries to be open next year.
r $42,500 as the school share of the school resource officer.
r $155,000 to restore busing for secondary students who live more than 1.5 miles from school and elementary students who live outside a .75-mile radius.
r $250,000 for technology upgrades, new computers, software, textbooks and supplies.
r $100,000 to pay for sports, student activities and summer school programs.
r $150,000 to hire one additional eighth-grade social studies teacher and one fifth-grade teacher in each of the elementary schools.
"We understand these are dire times, but the schools are in dire shape," School Committee Chairwoman Joan Arsenault said yesterday.
The size of school override requests has increased every time they've been made — $125,000 in 2002, $460,000 in 2003 and $975,000 in 2005. Arsenault said that's a sign the schools have a structural budget deficit that is continuing to grow.
"Every year, the cuts are devastating but this year they go to the core," she said. "How can you have schools with no libraries?"
