Opinion

Column: More work needed to curb Ham-Wen schools' spending habit

In Their Own Words
Enough is Enough
Published: July 11, 2009

The following statement was submitted by Enough is Enough members Robert Sica, James Kent, Elizabeth Dunbar, Edwin Howard, Warren Gray, Bruce Wadleigh, George LaMontagne, Jay Burnham and Arthur Towne.

One year ago, after the narrow passage of a massive, $1.8 million operational Proposition 21âÑ2 override, Selectmen Richard Low of Hamilton and John Clemenzi of Wenham proposed the establishment of a "Blue Ribbon Committee" (BRC) with a mission of finding cost savings and revenue enhancements for the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School District.

Both selectmen acknowledged that continuing with annual school operational overrides (10 out of the previous 11 years) was unsustainable. After considerable questioning by the Hamilton-Wenham Regional School Committee and its supporters regarding the need for the BRC, the committee started meeting in October 2009.

BRC members included current or former School Committee members, members or supporters of Support Our Schools (SOS), members of the towns' finance committees and one representative from Enough is Enough (EIE), a citizens group established in April 2008 with a mission of establishing fiscal responsibility and ending operational overrides, which continuously increase real estate taxes.

After a slow start, the BRC embarked on meetings that spent most of the time comparing school systems.

Much of the data they had available was old, with the most recent data being that for the 2007 school year.

Hamilton-Wenham had two large operating overrides after the 2007 data, while the vast majority of cities and towns had none. This skewed the comparative analysis to make the Hamilton-Wenham district look closer to other school systems.

Even with the old data, the BRC concluded that while Hamilton-Wenham did indeed have higher costs, they had similar educational results compared to the other systems.

To EIE, it would be like having snapshots of several homes all 2 to 5 years old, and from this limited information, concluding that the houses were comparable. We recommend that everyone read the BRC report. It will be available online very soon.

Despite the limited approach, the BRC did identify areas that need to be addressed. They particularly stressed that much more work needs to be done with the teachers union and other unions that represent school employees.

They showed that payroll makes up 66 percent of the nearly $30 million budget, and is growing by 5 percent per year. The BRC noted that if salaries were the only cost increase it would take more than the maximum 2.5 percent increase in real estate taxes allowed under Prop. 21âÑ2 — resulting in the need for an operational override.

EIE has noted that other towns around us are doing a much better job in holding the line on payroll. We agree with the BRC in this important area. People in nongovernment jobs are no longer seeing automatic pay raises in these difficult economic times.

Great teachers should be rewarded based on merit, not the current system that says you've worked another year, so you deserve a raise. Automatic step payroll increases should also be evaluated based on size of increase and necessity for the increase.

EIE believes that the BRC fell short when it failed to adopt an idea first forwarded by EIE last summer — to have a qualified CPA firm with knowledge of public school systems conduct a full operational audit of the school system.

Opponents of this idea make two arguments against this approach: One, there is no money that can be saved in the school system; and second, the towns don't have the money for the audit and don't know where they would get it.

While the idea was not dismissed altogether by the BRC, there were many meetings that aimed at limiting the scope to just an audit of special education and/or regular education programs and the promotion of the idea to hire an educational consultant rather than a CPA firm with knowledge of public school systems' best practices.

EIE would like to address these concerns as follows:

First: With expert outside help, it is highly likely that potential savings can be identified.

Our school leaders are educators, and we applaud the work that they do. However, much of the spending in a school system can be improved by adopting practices embraced by business and industry. Contracting out for services and sharing costs with other school systems instead of using expensive school employees are examples.

Sharing costs with other departments within the towns is another example. Lowering costs of supplies, insurance, utilities, grounds maintenance, transportation, plowing, utilities, communication and computer technologies could also yield substantial savings.

Most importantly, we need to get a professional, outside look at reducing the rise in payroll and benefit costs — not just with teachers, but also with aides, maintenance staff, secretarial support, nurses and others.

EIE recognizes that restraining salary and benefit growth is not easy.

The School Committee has been unable to act successfully in this area for many years. Getting outside, unbiased, professional support may be the key to getting this done.

Second: The cost of an operating audit would be far less than 1 percent of the school district's operating budget.

Once this school year's books are closed, the district will have more than $1.1 million in cash reserves. We would anticipate that the cost of the audit will benefit the schools with real cost savings and will also be money well spent to reassure the community that everything possible is being done to control operating costs.

A very small amount of this reserve needs to be allocated for the operational audit along with whatever contribution each town would be willing to make to support the audit.

With the BRC essentially wrapping up, we believe that they, as an ad hoc committee, have gone as far as they can. It is now the responsibility of the selectmen of both towns to work with the school board to promote an operational audit and identify cost-saving remedies that will maximize educational services for our children within the existing revenue streams available to our towns without the need for operational overrides.

With the highest tax rate on the North Shore, we cannot afford to ignore fiscal realities and necessary cost containment.