OSSU Budgets Are Lean
In All Three Towns
By Sandy Cooch

School budgets in the three-town Orange Southwest Supervisory Union are looking lean again this year.

Randolph, Brookfield, and Braintree will get their first chance to weigh in on local school budgets Tuesday, when polls open for balloting on a proposed $7.78-million budget for Randolph Union High School and a $2.54-million Randolph Technical Career Center budget.

The RUHS budget is up 1.14% or $488,000, and the tech center budget is up under 2%, or $48,250. (See other article for budget details.)

Proposed increases last year were also small, and then RUHS and RTCC budgets were cut back even further after voters rejected both last February. Two months later, voters did approve an RUHS budget with an increase of just under 1%, and an RTCC budget with a .5% decrease.

Locally, the trend of tight school budgets will continue in March when voters in the three towns consider elementary budgets that are either level or lower to the current year’s.

Braintree’s proposed elementary budget for 2007-08 is up one/tenth of one percent ($193); Randolph’s is down almost one percent; and Brookfield’s is down by more than 4%.

According to Supt. Brent Kay, this will be the second year that the combined Orange Southwest Supervisory Union school budgets—totaling about $16 million—will be essentially level-funded from the prior year. Kay thinks it is likely that OSSU will again have the smallest budget increases in the state.

Last year the overall, district-wide budget increase was just over half of one percent; this year it will be less than that, Supt. Kay said.

The savings are due in part to budget controls instituted over the past five years, and to the fact the district has reduced staffing by almost 14% in that time, in response to gradually declining enrollments, Kay indicated.

Even so, in the face of cost increases—for salaries and benefits, utilities, for federal and state mandates, plus the effects of an annual inflation rate of almost 4%—OSSU’s level-funded budgets represent "a real tribute to school boards, administrators, and staff," he said.

Special education, Kay noted, "is the largest (cost) driver again."

"I am not critical of children with special needs," he said. "What I am critical of is the way the federal government doesn’t fund it, and I am critical of the processes that govern special education, both state and federal, that in no way help schools to govern those costs."

Given continuing cost pressures, it is unlikely that OSSU schools can keep cutting back, and small budget increases are likely in future years, Kay said.

The CLA Factor

This year, the level-funded budgets combined with a $406 increase in the state’s per-pupil block grants would actually have resulted in "a significant tax decrease" locally, except for the CLA, or common level of appraisal, Kay noted. The CLA is the state’s estimate of how close property values in a town match fair market values.

This year the state has set the CLA in each of OSSU’s towns lower than it was last year (although recently reappraised Randolph is still over 100%), and a falling CLA adds pennies onto the school tax rate. (Since a low CLA indicates that property values are under-appraised, the state shifts the tax rate upwards to compensate.)

Estimated Tax Rates

This week OSSU Business Manager Robin Pembroke supplied estimated tax rates for the three towns in the district, based on proposed budgets and current figures for CLAs and state aid. She emphasized that figures might change.

It should also be noted that most taxpayers in OSSU towns will pay something less than the stated tax rate, since they qualify for income-sensitive provisions that limit school taxes to a percentage of income.

According to state calculations, Randolph’s CLA has dropped a dramatic 23 points from 140 to 117. Pembroke said state officials told her the CLA often has a big drop one year after a reappraisal. Pembroke calculates that Randolph’s residential tax rate will be $1.14, up 12¢ from the current $1.02. The non-residential rate is estimated to rise 15¢, from $1.03 to $1.18.

In Braintree, where the CLA dropped from 108% to 92.8%, the residential tax rate will rise an estimated 12¢, from $1.35 to $1.47. The non-residential rate has a slightly bigger increase, from $1.33 to $1.50.

Pembroke has based her Brookfield calculations on the state-published CLA of a very low 63%. However the town’s CLA could dramatically shoot upwards—and tax rates drop—if an in-process reappraisal is finished before tax rates are set.

Presently, Pembroke calculates that Brookfield’s residential rate will rise from $2 to $2.12, despite a 4% drop in the proposed elementary budget. The non-residential rate would rise from $1.97 to $2.20.

Pembroke noted that per-pupil costs in each of the three towns are well below the state "threshold" of $12,594. Towns that exceed that level must pay a surcharge on their school tax.

Locally, the per-pupil costs are: Braintree, $11,703; Brookfield, $11,519; and Randolph, $11,538.

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