HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-03-01-SC-min (2)
LEXINGTON SCHOOL COMMITTEE MEETING
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Wednesday, March 1 2006
Lexington High School
Present: Superintendent Paul Ash; School Committee: Helen Cohen - Chair, Scott Burson, Tom
Diaz, Tom Griffiths, and Olga Guttag;
Minutes taken by Leora Tec
The meeting was convened at 5:11 p.m.
I. Call to Order and Welcome (Helen Cohen)
II. Public Comment: none
III. Superintendent’s Report: none
IV. Members’ Reports / Members’ Concerns: none
V. Discussion Items: none
VI. Action Items
A. Motion to Approve the Lexington Education Secretaries Association contract
(Burson, Guttag). The motion passed 5-0.
B. Motion to approve the technology contract (Burson, Diaz). The motion passed 5-0.
C. Vote to Approve the FY07 Budget:
Olga Guttag wanted to split voting the budget into several votes to show commonality
among SC members in many respects but the committee decided to vote only on the
soundness and the full budget.
1. Motion that the School Committee endorse the educational soundness of the
Superintendent’s recommended budget (Guttag, Griffiths). The motion passed 5-0.
A discussion ensued wherein Olga Guttag wanted to discuss specifics and vote the
budget incrementally but Helen Cohen reminded her that the subject on the agenda
was the total budget. Olga Guttag wanted to recommend a level-service budget of
$64,080,462 instead of the Superintendent recommended $66,703,858. Dr. Ash stated
that this number would not allow the District to make progress.
2. Motion to accept the Superintendent’s recommended budget of $66,703,858
(Burson, Griffiths). The motion passed 4-1 (Guttag).
Olga Guttag did not want to have her dissenting vote misunderstood as failure to
support an override. She felt the amount was inauspicious considering town
sentiment and the state economy, that the current budget was funding too many
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initiatives, that some programs put on the override should have been protected, and
that some cost reduction initiatives (e.g. early partial redistricting) had not been
explored. Also discussed were the merits of multi-year overrides.
VI. Motion to suspend the session until the summit meeting (Griffiths, Cohen). The motion
passed unanimously. Meeting was suspended at 6:39 p.m.
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