Saying he realized it represented a “very significant” increase, interim Superintendent John Reed proposed a 2012 – 2013 school budget Tuesday night 5.34 percent greater than this year’s spending plan.
He said the $27,323,006 proposal, which he presented Tuesday to the Board of Education, wouldn’t add all that much, and that if it were subsequently lowered to an increase 1 to 2 percent, class sizes could be affected adversely.
“We want to maintain what we have,” he said. “We have a very, very, very, very tight budget.”
The additions that do exist, Reed said, represent the administration, on a “very selective basis,” choosing “not new things,” but funding that has existed in previous years.
Reed’s proposal would add a 10-month assistant principal’s position at the middle school for $66,906, restore two kindergarten paraprofessional positions for $95,934, and two clerical positions for $87,355.
But the biggest driver of the $1,383,860 spending increase are in so-called “fixed expenses,” like insurance, heating oil, and pensions. Such obligations will increase $645,981 next year, according to Reed’s presentation.
Instructional costs — textbooks, technology, and instructional supplies — would go up $243,621 under Reed’s proposal.
Reed spoke for about an hour to the school board at the beginning of its regular meeting Tuesday at the high school. A dozen or so people were there.
The superintendent said that although the proposed increase seems large — the school budget has gone up an average of 2.84 percent in the last four years — when his administrative team first worked its way through the process of reviewing budget requests, they pruned nearly $700,000 from it. He later noted that $230,000 in federal stimulus grants present in this year’s budget won’t exist next year either.
Earlier, Reed had highlighted Oxford’s rank as 152nd out of 166 municipalities in the state in net current expenditures per pupil, saying it showed the district is cost-effective.
“I think we can take some pride in that,” he said. “There’s a lot to feel good about.”
Reed also said he was bringing the budget forward with the “understanding it’ll be modified or changed.”
No school board members had any questions after the superintendent’s presentation Tuesday, but the board will hold a series of budget workshops this month with a view to adoption a budget at its next regular meeting Feb. 28.