Layoff notices going out; plans underway to avoid higher sports fees

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April 9, 2009

By Bethany Bray

Layoff notices will be distributed to 55 people, the equivalent of 41 full-time employees, in the Andover schools next Tuesday, April 14.

Superintendent Claudia Bach said she drafted the layoff letters earlier this week, as one way to help close a $3.2 million budget gap. The $60.4 million school department budget is $3.2 million short of being able to provide level services next year.

"It is very, very disheartening. The people we lay off, because it's done by seniority, are young people with families that bring a lot of skills to the job," said Bach. "This year, it was an agonizing budget to put together. We don't want to do any of these cuts. But we have nowhere else to go, after doing everything else we could do."

Bach and the School Committee will be pouring over Bach's proposed budget for next year, with discussion scheduled for April 14 and 28 meetings. At their meeting on Tuesday, April 7, the committee spent several hours discussing budget changes with the principals of Andover's three middle schools and high school.

To cover the budget gap, Bach's proposes eliminating $2.4 million from the school department's payroll through layoffs, doubling the fee students pay to participate in high school athletics, cutting elementary health programs and other measures.

School officials have discussed privatizing the school's custodial duties.

Andover Athletic Director Chris Bergeron said athletic fees have not changed in about five years. Students this year pay $250, no matter how many sports they play, with a cap of $500 per family. Bergeron called Bach's proposed doubling of those fees a "worst-case scenario."

"I know there's going to be an increase in user fees, but we're trying to minimize that impact," said Bergeron. "We're trying to find alternate ways of raising funds, to defray costs."

Bergeron is one of the authors of a Town Meeting warrant article asking for $100,000 from the town's stabilization fund to be transferred to the athletic program's operating budget. Plans are also underway for a June relay fundraiser to combat fee increases.

Bergeron has looked at reducing team schedules, playing fewer games to save on transportation and referee costs, raising game ticket prices or switching to pay-as-you-go fees, paid per sport.

This year, 946 students participated in athletics at AHS, more than half the student body, said Bergeron.

"My concern is kids who aren't the best athlete on the team, who play just because they enjoy it and have friends on the team, might consider not participating," he said.

AHS Principal Peter Anderson agreed at the April 7 School Committee meeting, noting the athletics fee has gone from zero to the proposed $500 in about six years.

"Every kid at the high school needs an identity, and if you're number 55 on the cross country team, then that's your identity. I'm not sure number 55 is going to want to pay $500," said Anderson. "I'm most concerned about losing those one-sport athletes."

It is up to the School Committee to make any changes and give final approval to the budget before Town Meeting at the end of May.

"The biggest piece is salaries. We're working with the unions to achieve some relief there, which would be a major help to the students and all the employees that work at the school department, (avoiding layoffs)," said School Committee Chairwoman Debra Silberstein. "We have to look at strategic investment, and how we are going to transform our delivery of services to position our schools to continue to be successful over the next few years. It's going to be a long time before we get back to the kinds of revenue we've had (in recent years)."

Bach agreed, saying any concessions made through collective bargaining with employees would be a "huge way" to save jobs.

Andover is slated to get $182,000 in stabilization money from the federal government, said Bach, but there are "all kinds of strings attached to what it is supposed to be used for."

The money will be coming in two separate sums, one of which cannot be used to hire back teachers.

"It's not enough to avoid the majority of our layoffs," said Bach of the stimulus money. "It's not enough to bail us out of this shortfall; it just won't."

"This is the most serious shortfall I've seen in my 11 years here. Programs and services to children will be less next year, no matter how it plays out," said Bach. "I am not at all being flippant when I say we have no extra people, every position is essential."