School Committee Adopts FY19 Budget

The Rochester Memorial School budget for fiscal year 2019 was approved during the March 29 meeting of the Rochester School Committee after a brief presentation by Superintendent Doug White and Business Administrator Patrick Spencer.

The budget was up this year by $180,000, or 2.96%, totaling $6,256,108.

“I think this budget provides the support necessary to continue the wonderful education for our students in Rochester,” said White. “I think as you go through this, you will see we’ve made some significant gains … to provide that quality education to our students.”

The budget, said White, supports the school’s developing technology needs, as well as evolving security needs, while maintaining optimum class sizes.

Driving the budget this year are various increases and decreases in different areas of the budget in staffing, regular education, and special education.

Staffing will see an $86,000 increase with contractual obligations, and some staff has been shifted and realigned according to student needs.

Also, said White, “Our grants for kindergarten are not as hefty as they once were, so we need to pick up some of those costs within our local budgets,” to the tune of a $66,000 increase.

“We’ve done a great job of offsetting some of the costs,” said White, not only in decreased utility costs, but also through the rental of space to outside entities. Furthermore, White said outsourcing custodial services will also save the district an additional $35,000.

Overall, by shifting staff within the school, the district was able to cut back $124,000.

Special education increased by $47,000 and regular education by $132,725.

The RMS student population has hovered between 450 and 475 students over the past several years with the exception of one year when student population reached 515. As of now, it stands at 507.

“We see a trend down a little bit, but we also know there’s growth in town and those numbers may continue to increase … which is the trend around the state,” White said.

The next meeting of the Rochester School Committee is scheduled for May 10 at 6:30 pm at the Rochester Town Hall.

Rochester School Committee

By Jean Perry

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