IPSWICH — An overflow crowd at last night's School Committee meeting sang with one voice: You're hitting the wrong note eliminating elementary instrumental music programs to balance your budget.
Three dozen parents filled the ensemble room at the middle and high schools, and another 50 or more were packed into the lobby outside the room, where the proceedings were broadcast on TV.
A budget outlook that appeared grim two weeks ago has grown bleaker since. What looked like a possible 2 percent increase in next year's spending plan is down to 1.5 percent, and additional cost-saving measures are necessary.
Winthrop Elementary School Principal Sheila Smith McAdams and Doyon School Principal Ken Cooper are proposing eliminating instrumental programs at both schools. They say it is the only thing they can do to save money without affecting core education subjects in their schools.
But audience members — and school board representatives — told them they had to find another way.
"I cannot vote to support a budget that does not include instrumental music," School Committee member Dianne Ross said, drawing cheers from the crowds.
"Then I hope you as a committee can find a way to not take that vote," Cooper replied.
The decrease in budget growth this year is a reflection of the slumping housing market nationally. Under the strictures of Proposition 21/2, towns can raise taxes each year by 21/2 percent, plus revenues from new growth.
The problem is there has been very little new growth, and increases in fixed costs are eating up a big chunk of the revenue from what there was.
Schools Superintendent Rick Korb noted that, even with the latest spending cuts, the town budget will be $22,000 over the total amount of taxes the town can collect each year.
"Growth in the community has bottomed out," Korb said.
Two weeks ago, Korb proposed cuts that would have saved $745,000; now, nearly $200,000 in additional savings also must be identified.
Originally, the equivalent of six full-time teachers and teachers' assistants were slated to be cut; now the number is nearly 12.
At that, Korb said, the schools will still be spending $99,000 more than they can expect in revenue. He's hoping that at least some of the teachers who are being let go will find other jobs and the schools can save on unemployment expenses.
School operating budget Proposition 21/2 overrides have become one of the third rails of Ipswich politics. Voters have never approved one, and when the most recent one was defeated a couple of years ago, some school board members vowed they'd never support another one.
They appear to be rethinking that position, and the topic came up last night.
Many of these money woes would be cured if the schools were getting their annual gift from the Feoffees of the Ipswich Grammar School, an ancient land trust that owns all the land on Little Neck and rents it to 167 mostly seasonal tenants, who own their own cottages.
The Feoffees' charter requires them to donate any income over and above expenses each year to the schools. However, the trustees are locked in a bitter dispute with their tenants over new leases, so the trustees held onto their disbursement last year in case they lose the lawsuit.
The schools can't count on the money this year, and it could be as much as $500,000, Korb said.
Committee member Ed Traverso, a longtime critic of the Feoffees, said that "record of incompetency" was almost unimaginable.
"I merely want to point out that if the Feoffees don't make a payment this year, that will make it 10 of the last 20 years they haven't made a payment," Traverso said.
He noted this has been happening in a period when the value of seaside property has skyrocketed.
Traverso's remarks were greeted with cheers and applause.
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