School Budget Talks will continue with Select Board

The Seekonk School Committee will be meeting with the Select Board next week to work out a deal on the FY’27 budget. The Spring Town Meeting is May 11.

The school department has been seeking a 4.61 percent increase over the fiscal year in order to close a gap of $714,000.

The committee discussed the possibility of instituting fees for athletics, parking, and transportation at their March 23 meeting.

Select Board chair Michelle Hines appeared at Monday’s meeting to encourage the school department to compromise on their budget request.

“The school committee and the select board have been working very well together,” Hines said.

“We have tried to hold the school department to a 2.5 (percent increase) because the school department has to be sustainable year after year.”

Superintendent Rebecca Kidwell floated the idea of charging tuition for full-day kindergarten, which would cost $3,435 a year.

“If all 150 incoming kindergarten families wanted to pay that, we could raise $515,000 as an offset,” Kidwell noted. “That would be substantial. That would make a huge drop in the bucket.”

The cost of pre-school tuition is $2300 annually.

“We could raise the pre-school tuition a little bit, but again, that’s a small number of families. So, transportation and athletics are the ones that include the largest populations,” Kidwell continued. “If the committee wanted to consider something related to transportation fee increases, you certainly could do that. At last count, we had 1200 students participating in transportation fees. We have 250 students who could be affected by athletic fees.”

Kidwell said reductions in programs might be “inflammatory, meaning they would be really distressing to people.”

Those reductions would include cutting high school electives, cutting elementary specials, and moving all students to half-day kindergarten.

“Some of them, like elementary clubs and activities, that would save us $2000,” Kidwell added. “That didn’t solve the problem. Eliminating high school athletics, that’s a big budget ticket item. That would be such a culture change for this town. If you want me to do so, I absolutely will.”

Kidwell clarified her position in an e-mail sent to the Reporter on Wednesday: “It is unlikely that fees alone could comprise the full $714,000 to close the gap between level services with necessary updates and the reduction the Town envisions.  The answer to meet that goal will need to be a combination of both increasing or instituting fees for transportation, athletics, activities, etc. and reducing existing personnel for a fourth consecutive year.”