The Burlington School District is proposing a roughly $106 million budget for the 2024 fiscal year, which would be about $8 million higher than its current budget, though the proposal would also cut some staffing positions across most of the city’s schools.
District officials outlined the budget — which is yet to be approved by the school board and would ultimately go before city voters on Town Meeting Day — at Monday night’s meeting of the Burlington City Council.
District officials said at the meeting that the cost of borrowing for construction of a new high school and technical center, which voters approved last fall, represents 57% of the estimated tax rate increase in the proposed budget. Other drivers, they said, include a roughly 6% wage increase and a 12% increase in the cost of benefits for school district staff.
If passed, the budget would result in a roughly 4.9% property tax increase, meaning the annual tax bill on a $370,000 home would be about $5,390, according to district estimates. For homeowners who pay education taxes based on income, the budget would result in a roughly 0.9% tax increase, or about $1,210 total on a household income of $50,000.
The budget calls for cutting 10 full-time equivalent positions, while adding the hourly equivalent of about four full positions, for a net decrease of about six full-time-equivalent positions. The reductions include several elementary-level homeroom teachers and more specialized staff positions, two specialized positions at the city’s middle schools, and two full-time equivalent teaching positions at Burlington High School.
Proposed additions include an elementary homeroom teacher and a special educator, as well as two high school-level instructional coaches.
Tom Flanagan, the district’s superintendent, noted Monday that specific cuts could still change before the budget is finalized. Still, he said, the cuts are based on trends in enrollment. The district has seen an overall decline in its student population in recent years, according to data shared at the meeting, notably at the kindergarten through fifth grade level, in which 2022 enrollment is down about 14% from five years ago.
“Those two things are aligned,” Flanagan told councilors Monday. “So if the enrollment is going in this downward trend, then it’s important that our staffing match that.”
The proposed cuts would also allow the district to continue providing “equity allocations” to its schools in the upcoming fiscal year, Flanagan said, which are additional funds based on a weighted student formula that give more resources to schools with greater needs. The allocations range from about $100,000 to about $400,000, he said, and the staff at each school is able to determine how best to spend the money.
Officials said a projected increase in student needs has led the district to increase its equity allocations by about $40,000 in the proposed budget.
Flanagan noted that the district believes it will have other positions available for the staff members who would be affected by the cuts.
Officials also noted that the district is anticipating funding challenges a year from now when developing its fiscal year 2025 budget because at that time it will no longer have access to federal Covid-19 relief funds that currently support some activities and positions within its schools. That’s part of the reason the current budget proposal — for the 2024 fiscal year — does not include any major new initiatives, they said Monday.
“It’s very hard to pull back positions once they’ve been given. And we’ve always wanted to be careful about that,” Flanagan told councilors.
Opposition to cuts in the fiscal year 2024 budget proposal is already brewing.
At Monday’s council meeting, two 5th grade students and one teacher at Integrated Arts Academy, a magnet K-5 school in the city’s Old North End, raised concerns about a proposed cut to a “unified arts” teaching position there. The person who holds that job, they said, provides valuable drama education for students.
“This is more than just an issue of eliminating a position to balance the budget, but it will affect the entire drama program at Integrated Arts Academy,” said Alissa Faber, the teacher who spoke out at the meeting. “This budget may seem that it is equitable, but it is not equitable for our students.”
In response to a question from Councilor Gene Bergman, P-Ward 2, Flanagan acknowledged that he has heard strong support for keeping the position from within Integrated Arts Academy’s community and said that the school could decide to keep it using funding from its equity allocation.
He said the district didn’t intend for the position to be permanent and believes that there are other staff at the school who can provide similar instruction.
The district expects to have its budget finalized later this month, Flanagan said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story understated the potential tax increase for homeowners who pay based on household income.
