2024-03-18-AC-ATM-rpt - Laserfiche WebLink

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2024 ATM APPROPRIATION CoXMTTEE 13 MARCH 2024 School enrollments The student population that the district serves includes the following categories: • Pre-K in-district including special education and tuition-paying general education students; • K-12 in-district general education and special education(including METCO); • Pre-K-22 out-of-district placement. The following table shows student enrollments for the past three years and the projected enrollment for the fall of 2024 (since we do not have a projection of pre-K enrollment,the entry with an asterisk is simply assumed to be the same as on October 1, 2023). In the first year or two after the beginning of the pandemic, it was difficult to put enrollment projections on a sound basis. However, as the following table shows, the student enrollment changes in the last few years have been modest, which suggests that the projection for next year is unlikely to be very high or low. It should be noted that the preschool program at Lexington Children's Place is more or less at capacity; several pre-K students have been sent out-of-district due to space limitations. Oct. 1,2021 Oct. 1,2022 Oct. 1,2023 Projected FY2025 Enrollment Enrollment Enrollment Enrollment Early Childhood 67 75 76 76* Elementary 2,702 2,702 2,674 2,644 Middle School 1,748 1,765 1,737 1,723 High School 2,273 2,303 2,318 2,341 Total 6,790 6,845 6,805 6,708 Salaries and Wages In FY2025, salaries and wages are recommended to increase by $8,061,435 (7.15%) as a result of cost of living adjustments, lane changes, and step increases. Salaries and wages make up 86% of the FY2025 request. The net decrease of 8.61 full time equivalent (FTE) positions results from the elimination of 28.53 existing positions and the creation of 8.20 positions due to enrollment changes, 10.73 positions to satisfy legal requirements or contractual obligations, and 1.00 positions for physical education/wellness (all numbers are FTEs). Of the increase of 8.20 FTEs due to enrollment changes, eight (8.00) are system-wide unallocated slots held open for unpredictable shifts in enrollment. Most of the 10.73 new positions are intended to level the teaching loads of the teachers at the High School, a contractual obligation. The elimination of a net total of about 17 special education positions would occur following significant increases in the numbers of positions for special education in fiscal years 2023 and 2024, and was proposed following a detailed review of the current special education programs and projections of the numbers and characteristics of the special education enrollment in FY2025. About 8 of the FTEs eliminated in the requested budget would come from middle school staff—the middle school overall enrollments do not appear to be rebounding from decreases that occurred several years ago. See the LPS Budget Book for a list of positions that will be eliminated or created. Salary and wage changes result from changes in the number of employees, step increases, cost of living adjustments (COLA), and position reclassifications. The FY2025 budget includes both anticipated collective bargaining unit settlements and increases for non-union positions. The effective dates of the most recent collective bargaining agreements may be found in the LPS Budget Book on page 9 of the Executive Summary. Expenses Expenses make up 14% of the FY2025 budget request. Special education out-of-district tuition is the largest single line in the expense budget (see the table on page 12 of the LPS Budget Book). Transportation costs for special education students and the transportation costs for regular day students are the next two largest expense lines. After these three expense lines, each of the others is much smaller,though there are many of them. We note that both this and previous school appropriated budgets are based on projected net expenses after the application of revenue that is not appropriated. Such revenue includes "Circuit Breaker" special education reimbursements and substantial special education grant funds. Funding Sources Not Subject To Appropriation A large fraction of the School Department's annual budget is funded by appropriations made by town meeting. However, LPS also receives substantial funding from state, federal and other sources that are not subject to appropriation and are therefore not included in the request under this article. The amounts of these funds vary year 6