To the editor:

The funding of the school budget is not a contest to see where Dartmouth places among Massachusetts towns, but rather an allocation of the money the Town raises by taxes, mostly the property tax levy of about $100 million. The choices we have, if we are to increase school spending, are cutting spending on other departments or increasing tax revenue by a property tax override. Of course, the other option is for the School Department to live within their current and likely future funding increases.

The increase in the property tax revenue is limited by law to 2.5% with new growth added in. So, the increase available to all departments is $2.5 million. (100 million X .025) 

Let’s get down to basics on the Town’s budget, dollars and cents. If we may, let us use round numbers to approximate where the money goes. The town budget is roughly $100 million. The school budget is roughly $55 million, $15 million for employee benefits, and the public safety budget is $9 million. That leaves $21 million for all the remaining functions of town government (public works, administration, libraries, parks, COA, debt service , etc.).The  school department is asking for around $1 to 1.5 million above what a 2.5% increase would provide. The challenge is, where will the money come from? If you are ambitious, you can pull up the latest Schedule A (the town spending broken out in line items) from the Town website and then decide where you can cut $1 million dollars. Many departments have only 1 or 2 employees, most only a handful. The entire funding of our public libraries is less than $1.5 million. Or, the School Committee can ask the Select Board and the voters to approve an override of the 2.5% increase limit on property tax revenue. Those are the only options if the School Department cannot live within the money available to the town. 

School Board members, the school superintendent, and the school budget director have all been quoted in articles on this site admitting their spending is unsustainable. The Select Board and Town Meeting's Finance Committee agree. The question we need to ask is simply, “What’s the plan to fix that?”

William Trimble