‘That’s nothing new when it comes to the politics of education’

I will freely admit that I don’t always understand everything that happens in local government.

That’s certainly is the case when it comes to next year’s Greenfield school budget, which was complicated enough before Mayor Bill Martin made the decision to unilaterally knock $1.35 million off the spending plan approved by the School Committee earlier this spring.

Martin didn’t cut the budget line by line. He simply reduced the education line item in his recommended budget by $1.35 million, effectively setting the stage for what School Superintendent Jordana Harper says will be “devastating” cuts for a system that can ill afford them.

Harper laid out those cuts in a tearful presentation recently before the City Council’s Ways and Means Committee. It was a gut-wrenching performance, and while some may criticize Harper for turning on the water works on live TV, I can’t say as I blame her.

Try spending six months or more jumping through hoops to try to craft a budget plan that is both affordable and meets the needs of your school district, only to have it blown apart by an act of alleged “fiscal austerity” which doesn’t seem justified. You’d probably shed a few tears too.

So now, in a year where even the most conservative estimates have Greenfield getting over a million dollars in additional state education aid, its School Committee is looking at having to cut 15 to 20 positions, as well as multiple extra-curricular programs including fee-free athletics and certain advanced placement courses.

I simply don’t get that, but that’s nothing new when it comes to the politics of education. The most common refrain I get from School Committee types is that I just “don’t understand the whole story,” as if this kind of fiscal palace intrigue is so difficult to figure out.

But, for the sake of this exercise, let’s assume I don’t understand all the ins and outs of this particular situation. What I do know is that the authors of the current mayoral charter didn’t intend for the mayor to become the “lord high arbiter” of school spending policy in Greenfield.

Making the mayor an elected member of the School Committee, at least as I recall it, was sold as an attempt to bring the city and school sides of the budget closer together.

In the previous form of government, the selectboard had little to no power to influence or shape school policy, especially when it came to the budget. Putting the mayor at the table was supposed to change that, while creating better lines of communication between two government entities which didn’t always play well together.

What we’ve ended up with is a system which has allowed the mayor to basically subjugate the elected School Committee by allowing him or her to insert whatever budget number he or she sees fit into the final budget, regardless of what that committee or the superintendent says.

It’s a power Martin has exercised freely during his time in office, and every time, the school administration has been forced to make adjustments. This time, though, it’s not going to be as easy, based on the cut list Harper laid out, which, if enacted, is going to make it difficult for the district to provide certain services, some of which are mandated by state and federal law.

Further complicating the situation is this expected increase in state education aid, known as Chapter 70. Because these funds are earmarked for education, the assumption is that it goes directly into the classroom, but it doesn’t. It goes to the community, which, more often than not, uses it to “offset” education-related expenses, such as employee health insurance.

It’s a perfectly legal use of that money. The problem is that no one, including Harper and the school committee, has any idea what the city actually spends on insurance or other like expenses because they aren’t broken down by department. It’s all aggregated, and is voted as such by the city council at budget time.

Speaking of the council, it doesn’t look like the schools can expect any last-minute help this year like they got last year, when the council reprogrammed $400,000 from Martin’s budget to educational services. There are indications now that move may not have been kosher legally, so the council is likely to adopt the mayor’s number as recommended, which leaves cuts as the only method of balancing a budget which was already on shaky ground to begin with.