Vote NO on Article 8 — School Special Education Reserve Fund

Attend the Special Town Meeting 9/13/22

Article 8 is a proposal to create a reserve fund of up to $900,000 specifically for Special Education. However, this proposal has no bearing or effect on Weston’s actual Special Education program. It is merely an accounting mechanism that is unnecessary, would increase your taxes, and would accomplish nothing other than parking a significant amount of taxpayer money in a low return fund, with no tangible benefit to Weston students, families, or taxpayers.

The proposed new reserve would be under the joint control of the School Committee and Select Board, and is intended to deal with variances in any given fiscal year between actual and budgeted expenditures. The purpose is to pre-fund difficult-to-predict, unanticipated contracted Special Education spending needs, rather than using already existing reserves and the annual surpluses in the Weston Public School budget, as is done now. This reserve is made possible as an option for towns by Chapter 40, Section 13E of the Massachusetts General Laws and, after the initial authorization, provides for no further Weston voter approval as to when or how it is used.

How would the Special Education reserve work?
The new reserve would be funded with either a one-time additional tax above and beyond your normal property tax payment, or through increased taxes levied over a number of years, or by using annual Weston Public Schools budget surpluses, which would have the same tax-increasing effect. Either way, it would represent an up to $900,000 additional tax. Further, as the fund is used, it would have to be topped up in future years through future property tax levies.

Focus on Weston strongly supports Special Education. However, this proposal does not impact Special Education spending or delivery, or Weston’s ability to fund its Special Education needs. The types and amounts of Special Education services are mandated by state law, and more importantly, are the right thing to do for our students. Regardless of whether this article is approved, all Special Education services will continue as currently managed by the Weston Public Schools, with the oversight of the School Committee.

Does the School budget adequately plan for Special Education contingencies?
The Weston Public Schools have routinely over-budgeted by $500,000 to $900,000, on average about $700,000 each year. That surplus is carried over into the following year via the Free Cash account held by the Town, and reduces your property taxes in that following year by the amount of the surplus.

• Over the last five years, Special Education contracted spending has averaged $2.8 - $3.0 million per year, or 7% of total Weston Public Schools operating budget. Most of that contracted spending represents Out-Of-District tuition at private schools for students requiring extraordinary services.

• The average annual variance in total contracted Special Education spending, compared with long-term trends, has been about $80,000, and never more than $120,000. Last year, the Weston Public Schools over-budgeted more than $600,000 for contracted Special Education expenses.

• Roughly 40% of all Special Education funding is reimbursed by the state. Therefore, any overrun in Special Education is mitigated by reimbursement from the state.

• The state statute allows for the creation of a reserve of up to 2% of the total operating budget, or about $900,000. The reserve would be roughly 10-20 times the gross variance, and 15-30 times the net variance after state reimbursement.

What are the practical alternatives to deal with variability in Special Education spending?
There are four solutions to the “problem” of variability in Special Education spending.

• First, the School Committee already has full authority to reallocate funds within its own $45 million operating budget. If cost center “X” is under-running its budget (say, Transportation) and Special Education is overrunning its budget, then the School Committee has the unilateral authority to use the excess funds in Transportation to cover the overrun in Special Education.

• Second, since the Schools have consistently overestimated expenditures for any given year by around $700,000, several times more than even the most extreme overall variance in contracted Special Education spending, the School Committee already has plenty of resources available to cover a potential Special Education variance of several hundred thousand dollars in any given year.

• Third, in addition to the significant reserves already built into the annual School budget, the Finance Committee has authority over an additional Town reserve of approximately $650,000. If in any year it appeared that the Schools’ Special Education needs were going to exceed its typical budget surplus, they would simply request a reserve transfer from the Finance Committee, which can be done at any time during the year. In recent years this Finance Committee reserve has never been used to any significant extent, so the vast majority would be available to the Schools.

• Fourth, in the highly unlikely event that all these options – totaling well over $1 million of reserves each year – are exhausted, the School Committee can always return to Town Meeting for an additional appropriation to solve an extreme, specific, one-time need. Weston almost always holds two town meetings each year, and a third truly “special” town meeting for just this purpose could be added. There is no reason to expect that this request would be questioned, or approval unreasonably withheld, especially for Special Education.

Because of the way town budget surpluses are carried over as Free Cash and serve to reduce the next year’s property tax bill, these alternatives are not just possibilities, but effectively kick in automatically and are quickly available. There is no need for taxpayers to fund a special reserve to be tapped at a moment’s notice. As with snowplowing, for example, we continue to plow the streets as needed even when the budget is exhausted, and then later make the necessary accounting adjustments using surpluses and reserves.

Creating a new reserve would accomplish nothing for Special Education, but will increase your taxes to park a significant amount of taxpayer money in a low return fund, with no tangible benefit to Weston students, families, or taxpayers.

What might help the Weston school administration and School Committee better manage school spending – and at the same time provide greater budget transparency to Weston residents – would be to more cleanly split the entire school budget from the town budget, as the process and considerations are very different. This will be the topic of an upcoming separate article by Focus On Weston.

​Please come to the Special Town Meeting on September 13th
Vote NO on Article 8, the School Special Education Reserve Fund