It doesn’t seem possible that our seniors will soon be graduating and other students will soon be enjoying the summer hiatus from school. As we wind down this year, the Westbrook City Council will be authorizing expenditures for the 2006-2007 school year.

In preparation for our ensuing budget, Mayor Chuluda convened a meeting in January with Brendan Rielly, City Council president; Colleen Hilton, School Committee chair; Michael Kucsma, school business manager; Jerre Bryant, city administrator and me to discuss his budget guidelines. Mayor Chuluda requested that the 2006-2007 budget reflect no more than a 4 percent increase over budgeted expenditures for the current year. This 4 percent increase was in addition to any new debt service that was to be spent on architectural services for the Fred C. Wescott Junior High School.

I am pleased to report that after many meetings, deliberations, close scrutiny and cuts to the proposed budget, the school department was able to honor Mayor Chuluda’s guidelines. This was not an easy task considering the large increases in our fixed costs especially those driven by oil, gas, electricity and other energy costs an increase of $158,000 over the current budget year. The largest increase in the budget is due to negotiated wages and benefits attributed to our contractual obligation to teachers, administrators and other staff – an increase of $801,000. all of our employees have been provided a basic cost of living increase and again have agreed to assume a larger percentage cost of their health insurance.

The new budget includes 3.5 new positions including a gifted and talented teacher, to meet state guidelines; a part-time English as a second language teacher, to meet state guidelines; a school bus driver, necessitated by the increased number of students utilizing the special needs bus; and a computer technology support (repair) person, needed to repair and program the ever increasing technology needs district wide. We were able to offset these costs by the elimination of 2.75 positions throughout the district and other savings realized by retirement of teachers and other staff.

This next school year will be the second year of implementing a new funding formula for education in our state. This funding formula recognizes the cost of educating students and finally is providing (phased in over four years) the funds necessary for these essential programs and services. The Westbrook schools have been fortunate to receive additional money from the state Department of Education under the essential programs and services model. Originally we received a preliminary state printout indicating an increase in state subsidy of $842,289. The Westbrook School Department did all of our calculations based upon those preliminary figures – in fact the School Committee passed its budget with those figures while remaining under Mayor Chuluda’s guideline. We were very pleased when the state Department of Education’s final figures came in reflecting $162,980 more than we initially were told we would receive. The Westbrook School Department did not add that figure to its 06-07 budget, but instead lowered the request to the city by $162,9809 to help reduce local assessments.

The Westbrook School Department provides a wonderful environment for educating our children and the future citizens of our country. The care and commitment provided by our teachers, administrators and all of our exceptional support personnel are second to none. Please visit your schools, communicate with out staff and continue to support all the efforts we are undertaking to provide the best education for all for life.

Please contact me if anyone has any questions regarding the proposed 2006-2007 school budget.

Thank you for the continued support of the Westbrook schools. Westbrook is truly a remarkable community in which to live and work.

Stan Sawyer

Superintendent of Schools

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