This session shares the Franklin, MA School Committee Budget SubCommittee meeting held on Monday, June 5, 2023. The meeting was conducted in the 3rd floor training room. Remote participation was enabled for this session.  A few residents logged in to the meeting.

Chair Dave McNeill opened the meeting. School Committee members Dave Callaghan and Denise Spencer were present. Superintendent Lucas Giguere and Business Manager Miriam Goodman also participated.

Quick recap

• Superintendent Lucas Giguere started with a recap to set the stage for where the group was coming into the discussion tonight. He outlined the Superintendent's proposed budget, increased by the School Committee, Town allocation revealed a $2.3M shortfall ($3.4M vs. 1.1M allocation). The Town Administrator has a plan to add $700K to the schools budget which is up for approval at the Council meeting Wednesday, June 7
• Business Manager Miriam Goodman provided additional details updating from the prior working session where they had five categories of proposed cuts to bring about a balance, it was now down to three categories. 30 were slotted for reduction, now with the additional funding, it will be 22 slotted for reduction ( a savings of 8 positions)
• Discussion around the middle school late bus being one of the cuts. Apparently complicated by the lateness of the bus in its return run to the middle school and apparently reducing ridership. Longer term, bus schedule needs to be adjusted but for now, cutting the bus 
• Discussion on the contract requirements for teachers with more seniority and equivalent (or better) certifications to ‘bump’ those without professional teacher status (PTS). Hence, while middle school has 2 music teachers this year, next year they will still have 2 music teachers, but the people will be different than this year
• All notifications of personnel potentially affected by the reductions have been made. The final determination remains based upon the ultimate budget outcome
• Discussion on not increasing the athletic fees as they would potentially reduce the number of athletes and thereby reduce the athletic fee revenue. Hence the decision to reduce the number of competitions for non-varsity teams along with associated other expenses to help create the amount required 
• Next step, based upon the Council decision on Wednesday, the proposal will be adjusted accordingly to bring to the full committee meeting on June 13 at which point the final budget needs to be approved and notifications confirmed for those individuals affected

The show notes contain a link to the agenda and to my notes.

The recording runs just under an hour, so let’s listen to the School Committee Budget SubCommittee meeting of June 5, 2023.

--------------

Budget SubCommittee agenda for June 5

 https://www.franklinps.net/sites/g/files/vyhlif4431/f/agendas/agenda-budgetsubcom-6-5-23.pdf 

FY 2024 Budget information -> https://www.franklinps.net/fy24budget 

Town FY 2024 budget information -> https://www.franklinma.gov/town-budget/webforms/fy-24-budget-materials 

My notes in this ThreadReader PDF -> 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KEZdIg_g-o_U9HZ3qjeCRfKiYo5UIF-F/view?usp=drive_link 

The show notes for School Committee member Dave Callaghan’s recent interview includes links to the Town Council and Finance Committee budget hearing if you need to catch up on any of those

https://www.franklinmatters.org/2023/06/school-committee-member-dave-callaghan.html

--------------

We are now producing this in collaboration with Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) or 102.9 on the Franklin area radio dial. 

This podcast is my public service effort for Franklin but we can't do it alone. We can always use your help.

How can you help?

• If you can use the information that you find here, please tell your friends and neighbors
• If you don't like something here, please let me know

Through this feedback loop we can continue to make improvements. I thank you for listening.

For additional information, please visit Franklinmatters.org/  or www.franklin.news/

If you have questions or comments you can reach me directly at shersteve @ gmail dot com

The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana"  c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission.

I hope you enjoy!

------------------

You can also subscribe and listen to Franklin Matters audio on iTunes or your favorite podcast app; search in "podcasts" for "Franklin Matters"