Vote Medford 2007

Full Text: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

Do you believe that local financial resources are enough to provide everyone in our public schools with a high-quality education? Could you give concrete examples how the school district could utilize private and institutional resources in the community to expand educational opportunities and overcome budgetary constraints?

Attenazio: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

Generally, the property tax is very limited in funding public schools properly. The typical town budget is not often able to adjust to growing populations or increased costs such as utilities and health insurance premiums. Funding is adequate, but no means a guarantee of a high-quality education. High quality education requires teachers to be paid at a living wage, and classroom sizes need to be smaller than they are now. The district and town determines if these are values they wish to support and fund.

There are some private education grant sources, DOE grants, USDOE grants and sources, including businesses which can provide additional financial resources for expanded opportunities in some creative areas. Some grants fund innovative teacher programs above and beyond the curriculum, some provide for after school programs, and some provide after school tutoring or enrichment opportunities.

Fundraisers can be targeted for specific programs. In one community, Asian American families do fundraising to bring in Chinese as a language in the schools. In another, a local education foundation provides a grant each year to a district to support a disability awareness program.

Brady: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

Local resources have been severely challenged by state cutbacks in aid to education. The state share of our local budget has been reduced from 37.5% to under 25%. Medford and other middleclass communities around the state have lost millions of dollars since the cutbacks in state aid which started in Fiscal 2003. There has also been a reduction in Federal aid since the inception of No Child Left Behind legislation. Medford has been very resourceful and has not made the major cuts in education programming and services that are typical of other area communities. We have generated creative revenue and obtained additional grants to keep programs in place. We have not resorted to extra user fees for services like transportation and Kindergarten like so many other cities and towns. We have put in many partnerships with groups across the city and area to enhance our capacity to do the best for our students. For example: a construction program with the Laborers Union; Health education programs with Hallmark Health(LMH); Professional development programs with Tufts University and Salem State College. Further, it should not be forgotten that the new schools were built with 90% reimbursement from the state and the remainder paid for by the sale of the old school buildings. Very few communities can claim that type of achievement.

Cugno: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

No, I do not believe that our future local financial resources are going to be enough to provide everyone in our public schools with a high quality education if the state continues on mandating more and giving us less funding. In the last two years the state has removed the local aid to the City of Medford by $1,500,000.00. Some examples that I have been working on to improve our financial situation is educating our parents and students that our voices are important and will be heard. Working with the Stand for Children organization for the last two years organizing forums and attending their annual rally at the State House to unite with other cities to let our legislators know that our children’s education is important. Advising our administrators continuing investigating more opportunities in state grants. Continue on utilizing our nearby universities such as Tuft’s University as we are doing in working in partnership and piloting programs, such as the Peace Game’s for our 4th and 5th graders throughout the city.

D'aveta: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

There has been successful interaction with Tufts University and the Peace Games and Medford; I see no reason why more collaboration with other area universities should not occur. Nevertheless, I do not believe in creating ties with private institutions that would circumvent the role of a municipality to provide the best education possible to its student residents through the normal budgetary process. Private partnerships can play an important role but they should in no way usurp our responsibilities as responsible citizens that support our students. I do believe that there could be a good deal of positive programming through universities and student teaching involvement.

DiGiantommaso: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

Medford has had large state and federal cutbacks. We don't charge fees for transportation and kindergarten. We receive public and private grants of over six million dollars.

Kulik: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

Currently local resources are not sufficient to provide and adequate educational experience. A high quality educational experience includes programs beyond teachers and classrooms. We must include music, arts, sports, and extra curricular activities as part of the overall growing and learning process.

Our classrooms must have up-to-date facilities. Currently our K-8 buildings fit into this category, but I have already seen issues related to simple maintenance of property, textbooks, other learning materials, particularly at the older middle schools. Keeping up with maintenance, and providing extra programs are often overlooked in the budget process.

One approach is the use of innovative fund raising and cost cutting. A few models to look at are the Friends of the Medford Family Network, which raises additional funding for MFN programs that are not paid for directly by the district. Another is the approach taken by the "Field of Dreams" committee to link cell tower revenue to debt service on a new soccer field. This model could also be used to help fund additional programs beyond those required by state curriculum standards.

Energy cost savings and be achieved with additional innovation such as the wind turbine planned for the Andrews - McGlynn campus, with additional solar power like city hall. The district should use electronic distribution of paper materials where feasible, avoiding not only the cost of the paper and processing, but also all of the environmental waste associated with excessive paper use.

We should continue to foster our relationship with Tufts University to see if they can provide extra facilities, such as special classes, on-site labs, and mentoring programs. Private corporations can be asked to donate second-hand computers and printers. This is currently being done at the Andrews School, and should be expanded throughout the district. We can continue to look into affinity programs such as shopping or credit card bonuses. Finally, we should take more advantage of parental resources for both fund raising and in-building help.

O'Keefe: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

High-quality education can be define in so many ways by so many people. As a School Committee member, I will collaborate with Federal, State, Local and private grant programs to seek and research opportunities. Paperwork is time consuming, compliance driven, and detailed for the school district which has plenty of expertise in this area. The community and this great City have an expanding partnership with our central administration. Community involvement is crucial. Using my legal and business experience, detailed project time and goals must be identified with short and long term objectives. Expanding the partnership with Tufts University that is recognized by collective bargaining, good faith, spirit of cooperation and financial obligations needs to be leverage. Identifying opportunities for cost shares with neighboring cities while expanding grant partnerships must be considered. I would propose grant writing seminars which will increase grant opportunities through this forum. Representation from the community to formulate a committee that is opened to Senior Citizens, Tufts University, Medford Public School administration, faculty, students, and PTO's should be partnered. Our city government needs the will and support of the taxpayers. EDNETS needs more attention and a presentation to the Chamber of Commerce, PTO's and other venues should be scheduled accordingly. Seasoned professionals from both public and private sectors will benefit from the increased financial resources (who are all stakeholders) as it puts less of a burden on our property tax based system. Medicaid reimbursement for Special Education services which is managed by Shore Collaborative are significant. How can we maximize this return? Local financial resources will always need to be increased because the community will always be setting the bar for high-quality education for our children. Yet, increase spending that involves school legal salaries, legal fees, and legal services that were much less the previous school year budget (2006 vs 2007) needs to be reviewed and a better job mitigating this cost identified. We must do better.

Pompeo: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

Is it possible to lose 38 million dollars in local aid over a 6-year period and still provide everyone in our public schools with a high quality education? Medford is doing its best!

Skerry: (Q4) Overcoming Financial Constraints

State aid to local education has been cut dramatically since FY2002. At that time state aid constituted 37.5% of the school budget. Today that aid is less than 25%. Additionally there have been new assessments to the city for state and federal mandated programs which have further reduced the resources for local programs including public education. State aid through Chapter 70 (main source of state aid to local education) is still 1.5 million dollars lower per year than it was in FY 2002. The City of Medford (and many others) have lost significant revenue from the state. It is estimated that over the last six years that Medford has been shortchanged approximately 38 million dollars.

All of the above is further compromised by the sharp increases in energy and health care costs. It must also be understood that even modest salary settlements with employee groups contribute to the cost of operating public education. The most recent settlement with the teachers calls for a 2.5% increase. The dollar value for the teachers alone is over $700,000 of new money.

There is a cost to maintenance of our facilities and for the cyclical replacement of technology keeping our schools state of the art requires investment.

The Federal Education Act No Child Left Behind imposes many new mandates on school system but the funding has not followed the requirements. Instead we receive about half of what we previously received

The schools serve more medically challenged students than ever before and there is a significant cost to providing these services. We often have to provide specialized nursing services and assistive learning devices to medically challenged students. There are six students who are so severe that the cost to educate them is in excess of 1 million dollars in the aggregate per year. One student alone in this category costs $250,000.

The local property tax has been affected by these ill-advised state and federal cutbacks. Medford has steadfastly refused to implement fees on most public education services including transportation and kindergarten. (we do have a comparatively small fee for athletics)

Medford has not cut essential school services like many area communities. We have maintained excellent class size overall and have not cut any major programs. In fact we have added several.

Medford has generated significant resources from many sources to augment programs and to offset the loss of state and federal funds. These include:

• Vocational Construction Program with Laborers International valued at over $300,000 per year.
• Tritec technology grants
• Public Health Department nursing services
• Tuition in for alternative programs (Curtis - Tuft/Fulton) approximately $400,000 per year
• Medicaid Reimbursement $700,000 to $900,000 per year
• Education Collaboratives to share costs of low incidence-high cost programs (Shore)
• Yearly Comcast Grant $100,000 plus
• We are still benefiting form our new schools construction reimbursement of 90% and the sale of older school facilities
• Universal Literacy funding/E-Rate
• Collaborative projects with Tufts University
• District Based Licensure Program with Salem State to offset costs of professional development for new teachers
• Private and public grant and revenues generate over 6 million dollars per year to help support and sustain school programs. This is an exemplary amount for a school system our size.
• Currently launching the Ed-Nets program to enhance our web-based communication and to generate new funding.