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This statement was read on January 11th at the Board of Education Meeting by a parent in town with children in the public school system. The 2000's may be remembered as the decade of bubbles. First, we had the tech bubble, then we had the real estate bubble. In the mid-2000's, our administration badly wanted us all to believe we had an enrollment bubble coming, but it never materialized. Instead, its legacy will be the expense bubble it created and with which they have left you — the Board — to contend. I know you've been painted into a corner so my question is where do we go from here? Now to be more succinct — if I understood Jeffrey Waters' recent comments correctly — we are facing a situation whereby with the contracted escalators in the teachers' union payroll and associated benefits and other fixed costs, we are already over the state-mandated budget caps for the coming year. This would seem to leave no money for programs. The model is broken. So something has to give...major cuts in programs, cut staff headcount, consolidate buildings, declare a state of emergency and reopen the teachers' union contract...something has to give. As several BOE members have said, we have an 'unsustainable model' and need to change. One obvious question is, how did we get to this point where by the state's rules of the game we can't continue the status quo? For one thing when you look at a plot of student enrollment and school budget over time in this District, you see that budget closely tracked the enrollment historically until the year 2000, which seemed to be an inflection point. And thereafter the expenses diverged sharply upward, growing much faster than enrollment. In the past ten years, K-12 enrollment has grown by 27% while the budget has grown by a whopping 101%...from a budget of $43 million to the projected budget of $86 million. Let me repeat these numbers because they are mind-boggling... In the past ten years, K-12 enrollment has grown by 27% while the budget has grown by a whopping 101%...from a budget of $43 million to the projected budget of $86 million. It seems that a major growth component in this bubble budget has been in administration, or non-teaching, salaries...essentially the creation of a new layer of administration. The next question is, given the state spending caps, how could this even happen? Yes the state spending caps should rein in the growth in spending...unless they are circumvented. As we know there are exceptions to the caps such as exceptions for enrollment growth. This is why our budgets are always based on aggressive enrollment projections such as BOCES. And when the kids show up each fall, the actual enrollment never seems to reach the projected enrollments that the budgets are based on. This is a way of circumventing the state spending caps. And the state does not do a look-back to correct the caps for inflated enrollment projections in the prior year. So if one year's budget was $100 and the state cap allowed 3% growth but also allowed for an additional 2% growth due to high projected enrollment growth...we of course would wind up with a budget of $105 for the 2nd year. And then the 3rd year's budget would be based on the inflated $105 budget and include another bogus enrollment allowance, and on and on. Obviously the state isn't doing a very good job of protecting us from our desire to spend. We've all learned the effect of compounding and over ten years' time it is substantial. This is one of the ways in which the budget has been allowed to get bloated. And this cycle continues until it reaches an absolute roadblock — a 'game-changer' — which is where we are now with our fixed obligations hitting a hard ceiling. It reminds me of a Ponzi scheme and what happens when you can't raise enough new money to meet past obligations — it comes toppling down. We're at a crossroads where — I believe Mark Zucker alluded to this — we need to re-think how we as a District deliver education in a sustainable model. Like every other organization in these times is doing, we need to figure out how to continue to deliver better education with fewer resources. And in a time when our enrollment is topping out and in some cases declining, we need to get our budget back in line with enrollment. Considering that Millburn has been a high-achieving district for decades well before the current administration, this should not be as daunting a task as one would be led to believe — we know that all of the necessary dynamics are present for that to continue. As for the budget growth, the facts are the facts. We all know how we got here and we all know where the current path is heading. To offer up suggestions for efficiencies (otherwise known as 'cuts') it would seem like the common sense place to start would be to burst this bubble in non-teaching administration — roll this way back — as well as revisit the teachers' contract. I'm glad to know the Board has pushed to put a dent in non-contributory medical coverage, but 4.2% pay increases are out of line with what's going on in the world today. Getting back to my original question, I really would like to direct it specifically to the Board and not to the Administration. The Administration has been the constant through this period and has managed our way to the current state. In addition the Administration's usual response to budget crunches is to announce cuts that affect quality, such as programs, bus service, teachers' aides...next thing we've got affected parents protesting the cuts and nothing meaningful is done. I'm afraid that the Board will need to really take a lead role in this budget process and set out specific criteria for the process. This needs to be fixed now and not muddled through — it would be unfair for a new Superintendent to need to address this problem. Years ago the question was asked, 'if enrollments decline will the budget decline proportionally?', to which the Superintendent replied something to the effect, 'budgets never decline, they only go up'. We've run our budget up to dizzying heights in ten years, these are now different times, and we need different thinking. So back to my specific question — to the Board — where do we go from here with regards to a sustainable budget? I hope the answer involves providing guidance to the Superintendent to produce a budget that actually DOES decline from the current one...a budget that places a premium on teacher/student interaction and programs, and otherwise swings a budget ax on everything else.
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