As outlined in the post MERSD Budget Challenges, the
district is facing three issues that will require difficult choices to be made
as we develop our FY-15 budget, namely declining school choice revenue, a
dependency on reserves, and long-term liabilities/OPEB (Other Post-Employment
Benefits) funding.
For the past three years, the
district has been successful balancing the impact of increased resident
enrollment while maintaining low assessments for the towns by
implementing the following strategies:
- We have made targeted increases to staff to maintain class size ratios.
- We have introduced programs to address the changing needs of our students while maintaining a 3-year average annual operating assessment increase to towns of 2.0% (This is in contrast to the 3-year average of 4.8% annual assessment for fiscal years 2008-2011). In fact, on a per student basis, operating assessments have actually declined 3% over the past three years.
- We have utilized increased Chapter 70 funds from the state, reserve monies, and internal reductions and reorganizations to achieve efficiencies to maintain low assessments.
Declining School Choice Revenue
MERSD is experiencing an
enrollment shift (see MERSD Budget - Enrollment the Driving Force) that that has a direct impact on revenue. Our student
population growth—24% or 281 students in six years—has prevented the district
from offering new school choice seats since FY-11, which has led to a decline
in overall school choice enrollment and incoming revenue. The school choice program is
a state program that allows parents to send their children to schools in
communities other than the city or town in which they reside. Tuition is paid
by the sending district to the receiving district. MERSD is a choice district,
but has not accepted new choice students in recent years because of our
increasing resident enrollment. At its height, MERSD enrolled 150
students, providing $875,000 in revenue to the district. As resident enrollment
has increased and the district chose not to accept choice students, the number
or students enrolled in the school choice program has declined to 80 students
in FY14 ($430,000 in revenue). Because we have been unable to offer new seats
to balance graduating choice students, school choice enrollment is projected to
drop to 60 students for FY15, bringing revenue to an estimated low of $350,000.
Historically, School Choice revenue has assisted in
keeping the assessed cost to taxpayers lower than the growth of resident
student enrollment would require. Because school choice dollars have allowed
MERSD to maintain strong reserves and offset one-time costs, we have been able
to sustain high quality programming through difficult economic times.
MERSD’s priority is to serve
resident students, and, as such, the trend away from School Choice enrollment has
been intentional; however, this has resulted in a decline in revenue. Therefore, the rate at which this occurs is
of critical importance to the annual budget. As a result, in an attempt to close the budget
gap for Fiscal Year 2015, the MERSD School Committee is considering, for the
first time in three years, replacing some of graduating choice students with
new choice students in the fall of 2014. The goal would be to strategically hold
our school choice revenue level from FY14 in a manner that minimizes the impact
on class size and resources and allows for a more gradual reduction to School
Choice enrollment.
Although we continue to seek
internal efficiencies in order to maintain class size and program offerings, we
have reached a point where the overarching budgetary issues must be addressed. We
encourage you to visit the MERSD Budget page to review our recent articles and presentations and to
learn more about the goals and the challenges we are facing. We also hope that
you will consider increasing your involvement with the schools. We welcome your
participation and input as we work to make MERSD a world-class district.
A great way to join the
conversation and learn about what's going on is to attend a School Committee
meeting. Here are the dates of our upcoming meetings.
Upcoming
School Committee Meetings
Tuesday,
March 4th
MERMHS
Library
|
Full
Business Meeting
Middle
School Program - Steve Guditus
|
Tuesday,
March 18th
Essex
Elementary School
|
Full
Business Meeting
Essex
Elementary Program Focus – Jennifer Roberts
|
Monday,
April 7th
Memorial
School
|
Attendance
@ Manchester Town Meeting
|
Tuesday,
April 15th
Memorial
School
|
Full
Business Meeting
Memorial
Program Focus – John Willis
|