An earlier draft of this piece was published in the Lexington Minuteman, December 7, 2006
The declining enrollment projections that have been published for the Lexington schools present a real opportunity for creative budgeting and financing. We are likely to have continuing budget pressures in the short run. However, the number of both elementary and middle school students is expected to shrink meaningfully over the next five years, and fall even more dramatically over the next decade. The high school population estimates are relatively stable. This projected decline in the overall school population is a reversal of recent trends, and reflects both national and local demographics. If taxpayers can bear to open up their wallets once or twice more, we can protect the quality of town services while expecting some relief after that.
No one can predict the future precisely, but the projected drops in the school population over the next decade are huge: 17% in elementary classrooms and 26% in the middle school population. For Lexington residents buffeted by massive increases in property taxes this is welcome news. One of the reasons overrides struggle to pass is that voters perceive an unbroken series of tax increases stretching into the future. What the enrollment projections indicate is that the pressures will abate in the future, and our financial crunch is not structural, but transitory.
I believe that voters are smart, not dumb, and that town residents are generous, not greedy. In two of the last three years, they have voted down Proposition 2 ˝ overrides despite understanding that this will impinge on the quality of education in the schools. Most NO voters accept that the quality of schools has a direct long-term impact on the town’s reputation and property values. They agree that town finances are under pressure because of the lack of funds coming from the federal and state governments. But they have reached their limit, resisting future inflation in their taxes after enduring punishing increases over the last five years.
I think there is a way out of the mess that we are in, and it truly is a mess not just from the financial side but also from the program perspective. As an elected parent representative on the Lexington High School Council, I’ve been able to hear directly from teachers about how the budget pressures of the last few years have cut into the educational program. I would encourage town residents to talk directly to teachers at the elementary, middle school and high school levels. The teachers I have met care deeply about two things: the excellence of Lexington schools and their commitment to educate all students – superstars, special needs, average students – everyone. Teachers’ goals and aspirations for the town mesh nicely with the desires of Lexington residents. It is important that we find common ground, and work together for the common good.
It is as easy for parents and teachers to typecast each other as it is for YES and NO voters. In my experience teachers in Lexington are dedicated, passionate, hard-working professionals. It isn’t easy working in institutions that have unstable finances, can downsize unpredictably on short notice, and in which there seem to be ever-increasing demands. Just at the high school, fourteen full-time jobs were eliminated this year, and the layoffs are having a tangible impact on service delivery. There are fewer class meetings per week and less hand-on learning in science. In foreign language, mathematics and social studies teacher loads have increased by 25% (and by a third in most science classes). Each class isn’t necessarily bigger, but stretched teachers are coping with a dramatic drop in structured planning time and much less personal attention for students. The team teaching approach to the freshmen class that has been in place for 20 years has been compromised, and there have been big cutbacks in professional development. The faculty no longer staffs the math help room. And that’s just at the high school, and just in one year. More NO votes will mean yet more cutbacks in a cycle that – falsely – seems to have no end.
Taxpayers are more likely to support adequate financing of what is a temporary (italics) increase in school enrollments if they have hope that there will be an easing of financial pressures in the medium term. I have written to the School Committee encouraging them to communicate a multi-year budget, demonstrating to residents that school spending could actually level off and even decline in inflation-adjusted terms as we work through the current demographic bubble.
Long-term budgeting is an art, not a science. There are forces pushing up budgets beyond demographics, including energy costs, health insurance and state-level special needs mandates that localities are expected to finance. However, the long-term demographic news is so good that we should see an easing of budget pressures in a few more years. Honest communication based on longer-term financial projections, and the crafting of temporary overrides with sunset provisions, could allow us to finance spending in the short run while reassuring voters that there will be tax relief in the long run. Our fiscal problems are short-term and transitory, not permanent and structural. Taxpayers who understand this are more likely to finance the institutions that make our town proud.