WESTBROOK – It’s only a little more than two months into the 2011-2012 school year, and already Westbrook school officials are looking to the 2012-2013 budget, which promises to demand tough choices as to what – and who – will stay or go.
But this year, officials at least are feeling more prepared than they were last time, when the sudden revelation of a $3.7 million gap in March 2011 sent the district into a scramble to make the books add up.
“It’s no secret that we were under the gun the last time we did the budget, and this time we want to be more strategic,” said Superintendent Marc Gousse.
As part of that, Gousse said, the district is presenting a public forum on Thursday, Dec. 1, at 6:30 p.m. in the library at the Westbrook Middle School, inviting parents and residents to hear what school officials are doing in the wake of the frantic 2011-2012 budget process, and to solicit opinions on how to proceed now.
The new budget won’t be a walk in the park. Gousse said early numbers indicate a possible budget gap of $2.1 million to $2.3 million, which the district will have make up in order to prevent that amount from being handed off to the public to fund through higher taxes.
Gousse said the gap is in part due to expected losses of $239,000 in state funding. Gousse said the gap also includes an expected loss of $588,000 in American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funds. That money, which the district gained access to late in the 2011-2012 budget process in April 2011, saved 17 jobs at the time, but now those jobs will be in jeopardy once again.
The 2011-2012 budget process, which lasted through this spring and into the early summer, was a painful chapter for the district. Following several years of no layoffs or tax increases, the district suffered drastic cuts in state and federal education funding, leading to a budget gap of $3.7 million. That prompted the district to pit the needs of the city’s children against the needs of a taxpaying public already stretched thin by the recession, and all with looming mandated deadlines in June.
“Certainly, time wasn’t our friend last time,” Gousse said.
School Committee member Alex Stone, who heads up the finance committee, said the problem seemed to materialize at the last minute, when then-Superintendent Reza Namin revealed the proposed district budget, including the gap, in March 2011.
“It was only then that I knew there was a problem,” Stone said.
The process made for a lot of long, and sometimes emotional nights, with the district’s parents, faculty, and staff making tearful pleas to Gousse and the committee not to cut too deeply into valuable programs, or lay off beloved teachers and staff members. In the end, the $30.7 million budget cut six positions from the district.
But for the new budget, Stone said, the process began this summer, more than six months earlier.
“It’s not a blindsiding like it was last year,” he said.
The gap won’t be easy to close, Stone said, but having months instead of weeks to resolve it will give the district more time to consider more ideas.
“I feel really good that everybody will have a voice, everybody will be involved,” he said.
Gousse said he is working right now on what he called three “scenarios,” or proposed budgets, each focusing on different cuts and different compromises.
“It will give this community choices,” he said.
Gousse declined to discuss his scenarios in depth, but said he would be considering any and all ideas for trimming the bottom line, up to and including layoffs.
“Everything is on the table,” he said.
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