Wareham School Committee approves Superintendent's amended budget proposal

Mar 19, 2015

Officials at Wareham Public Schools have adjusted their initial budget proposal for the 2015-16 school year, though the changes could come at the expense of some employees within the district.

In February, the committee decided not to vote on Superintendent Dr. Kimberly Shaver-Hood's initial proposal of $27,842,986, which reflected 3.58 percent increase over this current school year. Some committee members cited the proposal's likeliness to change as a reason for not initially approving it.

At Wednesday night’s School Committee meeting, Shaver-Hood came back with a proposal of $27,427,412, which the committee approved.

“We have peered over this document time and time again and we continue to look at it on a regular basis,” said Shaver-Hood as she presented the adjusted number.

She said that the reduced budget could involve “internal cuts,” and that it also included a reduction of $80,000 out of the district’s technology budget.

Town Administrator Derek Sullivan and members of the Board of Selectmen had both expressed concern after the schools’s initial budget proposal, saying that revenues could not keep up with the increase in spending.

While some members of the committee said they were reluctant to approve the new figure, they did so unanimously.

Committee member Mel Lazarus said he was not in favor of changing the original number in the first place, but said he thought school officials had done their best to come up with a budget that was suitable to be voted on by citizens at Town Meeting on April 27.

“I certainly recognize that a budget process is a matter of give and take,” he said. “I feel as though we are providing the best possible education that we can for the students from the town of Wareham. You just cannot continue to do it with decreasing funds. We have to think seriously about the way we fund our education in this town.”

“I will support this number . . . in the spirit of working out budget issues with the rest of the town,” he added.