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A proposal to increase rental fees for school spaces, from gymnasiums to auditoriums, is part of a plan to balance a draft $137 million spending plan for the next school year.
Haverhill School Superintendent Margaret Marotta detailed her draft budget Wednesday night for the school year that begins July 1.
“This year we took in $100,000, but we think we can bring in $200,000 next year, even if we lose a few events,” Marotta told the School Committee’s Budget and Finance Subcommittee.
Marotta explained Methuen charges $800 an hour to use an auditorium, while Haverhill charges $50 an hour. Likewise, Methuen’s gymnasium user fee is $300 an hour and Haverhill’s is $50 an hour.
Marotta’s proposed budget represents an increase of 2.39% over the current year. The city’s contribution would be $40.6 million with the state contributing $96.4 million in Chapter 70 education aid. She noted salaries account for more than 81% of the budget.
By raising fees to rent school spaces, adjusting teaching assignments next year to reflect declining enrollment and by not filling vacant positions, Haverhill Public Schools would largely avoid layoffs and maintain its main educational objectives, Marotta said. Her spending plan includes two additional education support professionals, two additional career technical education coaches and three custodians.
Marotta is scheduled to present her detailed financial plan to the full School Committee next Thursday, May 14. The School Committee plans a required public hearing on Thursday, May 28, prior to voting to accept it. The budget then goes to Haverhill City Council for its consideration and vote.
Marotta’s draft budget includes the elimination of 17 positions—14 of which are either vacant or those holding the positions are due to retire. They include a math teacher and an English teacher at Haverhill High School, that Marotta said, reflects a decrease of 100 students at the high school. Other position cuts are a grant writer, teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing, teacher for the blind and substance abuse counselor. In several cases, services are either no longer needed or the services can be provided through external contracts at a lower cost, the superintendent said.
Marotta said the school system is working with the three individuals who would lose their jobs to find them new assignments within the system.
Vice Chair Thomas W. Grannemann, who serves as chair of the Budget and Finance Policy Committee, asked Marotta what it would cost to increase pay for substitutes, particularly for the system’s ESPs, who are routinely tapped to serve as substitutes. He said he is concerned the school department will see more demand for substitutes next year under the recently negotiated teacher’s contract, not yet ratified, which offers up to 12 weeks of leave for parents expecting a new child.
“I am mainly concerned that the quality of the instruction goes down when we have substitutes,” Grannemann said, adding the district’s paraprofessionals have said repeatedly they do not like being pulled from their regular assignments to substitute in another classroom.
At-large member Toni A. Sapienza-Donais pointed out Whittier Regional Vocational Technical School doesn’t appear to have the issues hiring subs that Haverhill has.
On the issue of user fees, she asked the superintendent to survey other nearby districts so the School Committee can get a better sense of the range of fees being charged.