A presentation on Superintendent Doug White’s goals for the coming year ended up being a discussion on how to get more support for the Old Rochester Regional School District’s budget. The conversation was part of the Joint School Committee’s meeting on Thursday.

For several years, the towns have asked the ORR School Committee to reduce its proposed budgets, at times resulting in a reduction in staff and courses at the junior high and high school as well as larger classes.

“It’s really unacceptable for us to continue going down this path,” said Mattapoisett School Committee Chair James Higgins.

Calling the current budget process a “broken system,” Higgins said, as elected officials, the committee members should have more control over budgets. “How can the School Committee forward a budget that they approved and get it passed…so cuts aren’t made every year? It should be one of Doug’s most important goals.”

Higgins would like to see a proposition 2 ½ override on the ballots of all three towns next spring. The override would allow a rise in taxes that could help the towns accommodate a larger budget for ORR.

That would be a major undertaking, says White.

"I think we’re jumping the gun," White said in an interview after the meeting. "We’re really trying to figure out what the towns and what the region has for funding and what they’re going to need, and to take the appropriate action to try to secure those resources. A Proposition 2 ½ is a lot of work."

Since Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester all share the budgetary costs for ORR, Marion Town Administrator Paul Dawson said he believed all three towns would have to approve an override for it to affect the budget.

Temporary overrides have been done in the past, usually to cover issues such as large-scale building renovations. Those were debt exclusions that were retired as the debt was paid off.

Dawson also stressed that ORR's budget has not been reduced, but has grown, though not as high as School Committee members would like.

"It’s true they have submitted their budgets, and we’ve asked them to scale them back," he said. "That’s just less of an increase. Each year we have historically increased our level of the funding of the school budget."

School Committee members made it clear they would like to see much less trimming. Higgins alone called for a Proposition 2 1/2 override, but all seemed to agree that there needs to be more community and family engagement in order to get more support for the budget.

“It’s a matter of educating people and getting them to Town Meeting to support it,” said Robin Rounseville.

Christine Winters said it’s easy for people to glaze over information about budget cuts, so it’s important to show the community the good things happening in the schools.

“You have to tell the successes so they’re voting for something,” Winters said. “Getting the right information out…instead of saying, ‘If we don’t do this the sky is going to fall.’”

The points brought out by the committee members are reflected in aspects of White’s goals for the year, including engaging stakeholders.

“Those who we educate can help us get [the budget] passed. The more people who know our story, the better we can be supported,” he said.

White will also work towards improving technology as the schools move towards one-to-one devices for students. He said there were 350 Chromebooks in all of the schools at the end of last year, and there will be 1,070 in schools by the end of October.

He will also work towards improving leadership in schools.

“There are more and more responsibilities happening in schools,” said White. Much of that falls on principals to deal with.

“We need to figure out how to increase leadership. It has to come from providing teacher leaders in our buildings,” he said.

Adding more teacher leadership would also affect the schools’ budget.

“Your goals are terrific, your information is thorough, but at the end of the day…it’s the budget and the process for which we can get more money from the three towns,” said former Joint School Committee Chair James O’Brien.

As the conversation moves forward, Tina Rood’s recommendation to the group was: “Keep it simple and keep it strong.”

She said, “Identify needs, how our budgets work together and how we communicate that need to the community. These other things fall in then.”