The Old Rochester Regional School Committee approved a $17,641,000 budget on Monday night, almost a $616,000 increase over the current budget.

Here’s what is not in that budget: a social worker, a special education director, an art teacher, a part-time sign language teacher, extra late buses, a guidance counselor, department team leaders and new Chromebooks. Those new positions and items would have brought the total increase for the 2017 budget to $1,277,000, something leaders in Mattapoisett, Marion and Rochester said was impossible to fund.

After a number of meetings with ORR’s budget subcommittee and tri-town leaders, the School Committee arrived at a budget with a 3.6 percent increase.

Many of the line items that account for the increase are fairly standard – maintenance and operation of the junior high and high school building, staff contract obligations and an 8.5 percent increase in health insurance.

The towns also pushed the School Committee to adopt better long-term financial practices. This budget relies less on the school’s excess and deficiency fund, comprised of any unused funds at the end of the budget year. That money should be used for emergency needs at the school, instead it’s been used to fill holes in the budget.

“It should have $850,000…right now it's at $279,000,” said Superintendent Doug White.

There’s also less school choice revenue as the School Committee continues to decrease the number of slots for out of district students.

While many new faculty positions were cut from the initial budget, the towns did support one new special education teacher. The teacher is needed for a special education program for students 18 to 22 that will cost $90,000.

The state requires school districts to educate special education students until they earn a high school diploma or turn 22, and the 2016-17 school year will see enough of those students to justify a new program. In addition to academics, the program will have job and life skills training.

The program allows the school to keep the students in the district instead of sending them to other schools at a much greater cost to the towns – ranging from $80,000 to $120,000 per student. Each town has at least one student in this category and there will be four to eight students in the program.

Funding the budget

State aid, including funds for busing, accounts for a mere $3,120,000 of the ORR budget. That still leaves $14,301,000, most of which comes from the towns. The local contribution for each town is based on a few factors, including property taxes and the number of students from each town. All of the towns pay well above the minimum contribution set by the state.

The 2017 budget assessments to each town are as follows: $4,198,000 for Marion, $5,224,000 for Mattapoisett and $4,879,000 for Rochester. Only Marion is seeing a decrease, about $23,000. Mattapoisett has a $285,000 increase, and Rochester will have the largest jump at $303,000.

Still, the leadership and School Committee were hoping for more money.

Even though they were already removed from the budget proposal, school administrators did state their case for the staffing positions originally requested. Compared to other schools of comparable size, ORR is lacking in teaching and administrative staff. Even as enrollment has grown, the number of teachers has decreased: 48.6 in 2008 to 45.8 this school year.

For example, the high school has only one art teacher, compared to four in Fairhaven and seven in Dartmouth. Devoll said 218 students who want to take art next year won’t be able to do so.

An additional social worker was also on the original budget draft. The sole social worker currently serves 770 students.

“It’s almost impossible for one person to do the job for 770 students,” Devoll said.

He also said the schools are lacking in administrative staff with only a principal and assistant principal to handle all discipline issues and teacher evaluations, while also heading each  department.

“Look around to other schools in Massachusetts – the number of teachers we have, the number of students we have – to have an administrative team of two people, it’s really cumbersome,” said Devoll.

Committee member Tina Rood said the items cut from the original budget weren't removed because they are expendable.

“These are needs not wants,” she said. “It is very frustrating to see these things that our students need taken out of the budget.”

Rood said she wanted voters to have a chance to see the full amount at their respective town meetings so they could decide.

Town leaders have said that such dramatic increases as was initially proposed would cut into operational needs for town budgets. The state mandated Proposition 2 ½ allows for a 2.5 percent property tax increase each year. With few businesses in the tri-town, property tax accounts for the majority of revenue for towns. The first budget proposed was more than an eight percent increase, which would have required cuts in other town departments.

“The town’s hands are tied on the amount of money they can appropriate,” said White.

Working with the towns did result in a new approach in paying for capital needs.

On Monday night, the School Committee also voted to approve a $603,000 debt exclusion to pay for new security equipment, furniture, equipment replacements and other building needs over a five-year period. The debt exclusion would allow ORR to spread the cost out over 10 years, with the yearly payments split up between the three towns. The measure was something encouraged by town leaders.

Now that the school committee has voted to certify the budget, it will now go to the upcoming town meetings for approval from voters as will the debt exclusion.