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APPROPRIATION COMMITTEE 4" REPORT, April 28, 2007, TO 2007 ATM Gains and Losses in Full- Time - Equivalent Staffing FY2008 Over FY2007: Type of Staffing Gain/Loss Number of FTEs (a) Existing FTEs: at -risk on override 41.79 (b) New FTEs: at -risk on override 14.70 (c) New FTEs: not at -risk on override 25.63 Override Scenarios — these are NOT simple totals of the items above (see formulas) Net FTE (loss) /gain over FY2007 if override passes 40.33 Formula: b + c Net FTE (loss) /gain over FY2007 if override fails (16.16) Formula: c - a CLASS SIZE During the budget process, the School Committee was presented with a proposal to reduce its budget by moving students from one elementary school to another so that more classes would exceed the School Committee's "preferred" number of students. This would minimize the number of classroom teachers required at the elementary schools in the current year. The recently adopted redistricting plan for FY2008 more equally balances the number of students across the elementary schools, but does not go so far as to balance the numbers of students in individual classrooms. Implementation of the proposal to minimize the number of classrooms would: 1) result, on average, in larger classes because the decades -old class -size policies and procedures yield some classes with fewer than the "preferred" number of students, 2) require that students in specific grades and schools be made to attend other schools beyond the changes from the recent redistricting, and 3) result in some classrooms having sizes above the "maximum" as students move into and out of the elementary school districts after June. The School Committee considered the proposal, but did not adopt it. They did not want to increase class size nor did they want to go beyond the redistricting procedure in moving students to different schools. Alternative ways of controlling class sizes, such as returning to the use of multi -grade classrooms were also considered and rejected because principals feel multi -grade classrooms are no longer viable due to different State curriculum frameworks for dif'f'erent grades. The at -risk list includes 2 additional "unallocated" K-5 teachers who will be used to create two additional classrooms and thus reduce class size in two grades /schools. These positions usually do not get assigned to a school or grade until August when the starting enrollment is better known. Many people move into Town over the summer, thus new students register shortly before school begins. This occurs across all the school districts and frequently in the school districts that have rental housing. For example, the Estabrook School district includes the Katandin Woods rental units. Visiting researchers and professors, many of them from foreign countries, rent at Katandin while they work in the area. So not only do we have new students registering over the summer, many of these students have limited English language skills and need assistance from the English Language Learners (ELL) department. ENERGY The school capital expenditures being requested under Article 34 will fund, among other projects, five projects that can be implemented quickly and once properly completed will save energy thus reducing operating costs. The School Committee, with the concurrence of the Capital Expenditures Committee and this Committee, proposed that some of these projects be funded with the projected energy savings. For FY2008, to fund short-term borrowing costs for these projects, $18,200 has been transferred from the Page 7 of 13