RUHS Board OKs Budget
With 1.1% Increase
By Sandy Cooch

Randolph Union High School Board members will ask voters in February to approve a 2007-08 RUHS budget of $7.78-million, up just 1.14% ($88,000) from this year’s budget.

At its meeting Dec. 13, the board also approved a proposed Randolph Technical Career Center budget of $2,542,653, representing a 2.02% ($48,254) increase.

The single biggest increase in the RTCC budget is a $23,874 jump in adult education costs, due to an increase in the number of people in the adult diploma program, RTCC Director Bill Sugarman said. The proposed budget, he said, would actually reduce technical center tuition for sending schools by $283 per student.

RUHS board members also agreed last week to ask voters to place a surplus of $148,560 from RUHS’s 2005-06 fiscal year into a building maintenance fund.

A suggestion by one board member to use the surplus to reduce next year’s budget—thereby lowering taxes—was briefly discussed. However, after hearing about two pressing equipment/repair needs at the school—an electrical control system for auditorium lights and a "leveling device" for the kitchen—board members agreed unanimously that voters should be asked to place the surplus in the maintenance fund.

Voters approved a similar request last year. The building maintenance fund has been tapped this year to assist the board in preparing for a $10-million bond vote for school repairs. (See other article for information on the bond project and proposed expenditures for electrical equipment for the kitchen and auditorium.)

The entire board approved the proposed RTCC budget, but RUHS board member Andy Becker of Randolph abstained from the vote on the RUHS budget.

Elective Courses

Earlier in the meeting, Becker had lobbied to keep a (currently unfilled) teaching position in the budget. This year the school had been unable to find a teacher with the required double certification to fill the position, to teach business and other elective courses. The position was cut from the proposed 2007-08 budget.

Becker, who noted that board members had in the past supported increasing electives, argued that more electives would help attract tuition students to RUHS and help keep its own students from transferring to private schools, such as The Sharon Academy.

However, board members Angelo Odato and Ron Beaudin countered that in the face of declining enrollments at RUHS, they could not support keeping the position, which would have brought the budget increase to almost 2%.

According to an informational sheet attached to the budget, student numbers at RUHS have dropped from 599 to 520 over the past five years. Over the same time, the number of teachers has dropped by two, and the number of aides has dropped by seven. Total staff, including administrators and support staff (kitchen and maintenance staff), has dropped by almost 12 full-time equivalent positions during those five years.

On the topic of electives, it was noted that RTCC and RUHS administrators and guidance counselors are working on a plan that would allow RUHS students to take electives at the technical center in the future.

Few Changes

The proposed $7.78-million RUHS budget contains few big changes. An apparent monstrous increase in special education costs of $568,476 (a 61% increase) is primarily a reporting change, transferring $545,400 from one line item to another. That is yet another state-mandated change in reporting, Supt. Brent Kay told the board. Absent that shift, RUHS’s special education costs are up $23,000.

Voters in Braintree, Brookfield, and Randolph will be asked to approve the RUHS and RTCC budgets, plus the request to place the surplus in the building fund, in Australian ballot voting Tuesday, Feb. 7. The annual meeting of the Randolph Union District #2 and a budget information session will be held the prior evening.

Elementary school budgets in the three towns will be voted in March, on Town Meeting Day.