Stable, sustainable financing is essential for Brookline’s high-quality, high-expectations schools. It’s also our biggest challenge, especially when costs rise far faster than revenues as they have for the past several years. Here are the pieces of the budget annual challenge:

• Prop. 2 ½: 85% of revenues for the schools come from local taxes. Proposition 2 ½ limits annual growth to 2.5% while the costs for everything (salaries, health benefits, and transportation in particular) routinely rise far more.

• Minimal State Funding: Brookline’s per-pupil reimbursement from the State is set lower because we are a “wealthy” district, and the state is proposing cutting another $30/pupil from our already-low rate next year.

• Health Insurance: Health Insurance premiums typically rise 4-6% each year, but this year rose 11.5%. Brookline also has one of the highest contractual premium share rates in the Commonwealth, paying 83% of employee premiums (by comparison, Newton pays 70%).

• Transportation: Specialized and adaptive transportation for students who need it in-district or to attend out-of-district special placements is not included in special education reimbursements from the state. Brookline shoulders 100% of those costs.

For the same reasons, many districts in Massachusetts are facing significant gaps this year. Despite that, I support the current audit and the Select Board appointed Expenditure and Revenues Study Committee to get more clarity on the reasons for Brookline’s current situation and to set us on a path for more predictable, sustainable budgeting in the future.

As a leader in early childhood education, I am proud to have helped develop and grow our BEEP program and to introduce full-day Kindergarten in 2001. I believe in Brookline’s commitment to educating the whole child and our investment in attracting and retaining the best teachers and educational staff. I was a founding member of what is now the BHS Innovation Fund that has spurred so much curricular innovation at the high school. That is what pursuing educational excellence means to me.

Going forward, we need to find ways to:

• Make good on the promise that educational excellence for all students means all students;

• Better support Early Childhood educators as we continue expanding BEEP and other early supports for literacy and mathematics education

• Sustain the full range of courses at the High School that have defined us as a high-performing district with engaged, well-rounded students; 

• Re-establish a robust World Language program in K-5; and

• Ensure that our schools are safe and supportive places for all, and that hate speech of any kind is not tolerated.

Brookline’s success and vibrancy as a town is inextricably linked to the success and vibrancy of its public schools. Understanding that was what led to the Town/School partnership (TSP), which began when I was newly on the School Committee. It was more than just an agreement to share resources. The TSP established lines of communication between the administrations of the town and schools; a commitment to work together so that all could thrive. For many reasons, the relationship of trust has frayed, but the link between town and schools has not. It’s time to recommit to and rebuild that partnership. 

I support:

• Finishing the current audit that is underway and implementing any reforms in fiscal practice that are needed;

• Having a joint committee of Town and Schools to review and renew our Town/School Partnership agreement;

• Working with the Select Board to ensure that the Town Administrator and Superintendent of Schools establish and maintain regular communications in order to better anticipate and plan for mutual challenges; and 

• Encouraging the chairs of the School Committee, Select Board, and Advisory Committee to communicate regularly with each other about anything affecting the budget.