Special Board of Aldermen Public Hearing Page 7
Director Budreau
| think it’s critical before | leave to let you know that this is the first time that the rates have increased
since July of 2013. If you were to take a look of the appropriation for the last several years, it’s been
relatively flat. So you really have to look at it it’s not a year to a year increase of $4 million but the
first increase in the appropriation since fiscal 2014.
Fred Teeboom
Show the comparison. One other question on page 18, line item 191. The schools went up for
$137.9 million to $141.4 million. That’s not the full cost of schools because the full cost of schools
are closer to $160 million if you look at the MS2. (inaudible) Just look at these costs, that almost a
$4 million increase. That’s 2.58 percent. It is well above even your guideline Mayor. This is way
above any spending cap, an inflation calculation of 1.4 percent. That happens to be 2.58 percent. Do
you have an explanation for that? Line item 191.
Mayor Donchess
Yes the figures you're looking at include pension and benefit costs which for the sake of analyzing
year to year costs of operations are not included in the guidelines that | gave. If you look at
operations only, the guideline | gave for the school was 1.9 percent which could accomplish various
things. That’s what they did. | cut the budget by $100,000 to achieve the 1.9 percent. What they got
for that was they were able to budget for full day kindergarten and the Superintendent had proposed
that in order to do that, two | think critical services be removed because here original budget was a
little bit below this. One was the Clearway High School to bring that in house at a savings of
$300,000. Number two, to eliminate teaching coaches — two of them. After hearing from the
community regarding the value of the Clearway High School which is operated by the Adult Learning
Center and has been for a least a couple of decades effectively | thought and based upon the need to
make sure that our young teachers develop to the fullest extent that they can, the teaching coaches
are also critical. So | gave them a guideline which enabled them to put the full day kindergarten
without cutting Clearway or the teaching coaches. That’s why the budget is up. The numbers you’re
looking at include the benefits of a pension that we’ve already talked about.
Fred Teeboom
So when you gave them the 1.9 percent, you were aware that there could be additional increases
because the pension had doubled in costs.
Mayor Donchess
Yes.
Fred Teeboom
You still gave them the 1.9 percent.
Mayor Donchess
Yes we’ve been talking about the pension problems for many months now. As the year progressed, it
became obvious that the amount of money that we would need to actually pay the health benefits was
going to be higher than last year. Now last year at the end the amount budgeted — when | say last
year, | really mean our current fiscal year.
