FM #1359 - School Cmte Budget Workshop - 01/22/25

Franklin Matters Radio

This session shares the Franklin (MA) School Committee Budget Workshop held on Wednesday, January 22, 2024. All 5 members participated in the 3rd floor Training Room (2 absent; O’Sullivan, Sompally).

Quick recap

• Superintendent Lucas Giguere and Interim School Business Administrator Jana Melotti along with consultant Dr Bob Dutch shared in presenting the overview and answered detailed questions on the developing FY 2026 school budget
• This is a ‘zero based’ budget to the extent that to develop the budget the prior year format with 9 schools can’t be used this year. The redistricting is bringing 5 elementary into 4 schools (2 buildings), and 3 middle schools into 1 middle school (1 building)
• The redistricting does provide a significant savings to the community. If the redistricting was not in process for implementation in September 2025, the proposed budget would be asking for $6M more
• The “Tale of Two Budgets” presents a level service budget and a level service plus budget. Terminology is key to understanding the budget. Level service means supporting the same or equivalent functionality to support the education of our students next year.
• “Level service” does not bring back any major elements of the prior year budget reductions.
• “Level service plus” attempts to add some of those elements back into the budget
• Now with the redistricting providing additional savings than previously expressed, there are some elements that can come back within the level service budget. The fee increases (sports & bus) potentially can be reduced. The budget is evolving to reflect the changing circumstances
• The Superintendent Recommended budget will be presented at the School Committee meeting on Tuesday, January 28, 2025. There is a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday, February 4. The School Committee is scheduled to vote on the recommended budget on February 11
• As noted in the recording, the Joint Budget Listening Sessions are scheduled beginning January 30 at the Elks Lodge on Pond St and run through the beginning of March in multiple locations, night, day, and weekend time slots to provide opportunity for questions to be asked and answered not just on the School budget but on the overall Town budget for FY 2026. Except for the Council Chambers session, where Zoom will be enabled, the other listening session will be broadcast and recorded but will not enable an interactive remote participation. If you have a question, be there in person

The recording runs just under 2 hours, so let’s listen in.

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The agenda doc -> https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/4780/FPSD/5190798/1-22-25_AGENDA-Budget_Workshop.pdf

My full set of notes in one PDF -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ve1DQuLctE8KMzI0qvhaZGutHNjOGcDR/view?usp=drive_link

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The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana" c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission.

I hope you enjoy!

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