The Basics
What is Proposition 2½?
What’s On the Ballot?
What is Needed for the Override to Pass?
Why vote YES on both if I really want the foreign language program?

What is Deferred Maintenance?
Why is Extension of Learning Time in Both Packages?
Why Should I Support Foreign Language?
What will happen if the Override doesn’t pass?
How much will an override cost taxpayers?

About Finances and Town Services
What is the Override Study Committee?
What did the OSC report say Brookline has already done to control wasteful spending?
Why haven’t rising property values given us rising revenues to meet growing expenses?
Are Brookline’s property taxes really the highest in Massachusetts?
How have we avoided the overrides that so many other towns have needed?
What is Brookline’s “free cash” account and why can’t we use that instead?
Doesn’t Brookline have reserve funds for hard times like these?

About the School Day, Administration, and Programs
How did the Schools Decide on 20 Minutes per day?
How will the Schools use the extra learning time?
Is it true that Brookline isn’t meeting state Time & Learning requirements for middle school and high school? Why do we need an override to comply with the law?
Is this world languages program the same as the old one that Brookline had a few years ago?
What will the NEW language program look like?
Has this World Language curriculum been tried anywhere else?
I’ve heard that enrollments are growing, but also that they’ve declined. Which is right?
Why have the schools added so many employees since the last override in 1994?
How much do we really spend per pupil compared with other school districts in the state?
If the schools need more money, why do we defend the Town-School partnership that splits revenues 50-50 with the Town? Don't schools in other towns sometimes get more?


The Basics

What is Proposition 2½?
Proposition 2½ is a state law passed by voters in 1980. It says that cities and towns can only raise total taxes on existing property by 2.5% each year, unless the community votes for an override. This means that if property values double, the tax rate must be cut so that total taxes collected on existing property do not rise faster than Proposition 2½ permits.

However, taxes on individual properties can rise by more or less than 2.5%. If the value of your house goes up faster than the average, your taxes will rise more than the average. Until recently, the price/value of owner-occupied housing was rising faster than the price of rental housing and commercial property. Therefore, taxes on owner-occupied housing rose more than 2.5%.

Communities may also collect additional taxes on “new growth,” which is the term used to describe new development and substantial improvements to existing properties. Because of the complicated way that Proposition 2½ works, some of the taxes on “new growth” may actually be collected on existing property or vice versa, but any shift is very small.
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What’s on the Ballot?
The ballot wording is confusing because the state requires certain language, but the vote is relatively simple.  Selectmen opted to give voters a choice of two related packages (called a “pyramid” choice because the second package adds options and funding to the first). 

• 1A for $ 5.4 Million provides funds to prevent cuts in town services and school programming, addresses deferred maintenance for buildings, roads, sidewalks and parks, and increases the instructional time in the public school day by 100 minutes/week (which also helps Brookline meet state time and learning requirements);
• 1B for $ 6.2 million does everything in #1A plus raises funds to restore foreign language instruction across all Brookline schools in grades K-6.

The ballot question asks you to vote on each of these two possibilities (see Why vote YES on both?) separately.  If you support the question (in other words, if you would say yes to the question if it were the only choice), then vote YES on each.  They do not compete with each other.  If both questions receive more "yes" votes than "no" votes, only the higher dollar amount will win, even if one of them gets more votes than the other. So a YES vote for BOTH is the same as voting for the higher amount.
The $ 6.2 million override will fund town services as follows:

$ 2.1 million to prevent cuts in basic services in the Town and Schools next year (see What will happen if the override does not pass?)
$ 1.5 million to make up for delayed maintenance of buildings, roads, sidewalks (including sidewalk snow plowing) and parks
$ 1.8 million to extend learning time in the Public Schools by 100 minutes/week (an increase that is needed at the high school to meet state time and learning requirements)
$ 800,000 to implement instruction of foreign language in grades K-6
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What is Needed for the Override to Pass?
Either question needs a majority of YES votes to pass (more YES votes than NO votes). A majority on Question 1A will guarantee that the $ 5.4 million override passes, preventing immediate cuts in school and town budgets, repair to neglected buildings, roads, parks, and sidewalks, and extending the school day 100 minutes each week.

If Question 1B gets more “yes” votes than “no” votes, it will win even if Question 1A gets more “YES” votes overall.  Voting yes on BOTH questions is the best option for passing the override because it avoids the risk of splitting support votes and passing no override at all. A vote for Question 1A CANNOT hurt 1B.

Yes on 1A = $ 5.4 million

Yes on 1A + Yes on 1B = $ 6.2 million (includes foreign language)

 

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Why vote YES on BOTH if I really want the foreign language program?
A YES vote for BOTH is the same as voting for the higher amount.    Voting yes on BOTH questions is the best option for passing the override because it avoids the risk of splitting support votes and passing no override at all. A YES vote for Question 1A CANNOT hurt 1B's chances.  If Question 1B gets more “yes” votes than “no” votes, it will win even if Question 1A gets more “YES” votes overall
    
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What is Deferred Maintenance?
The funding in the override (.5 million) for “deferred” or “delayed” maintenance puts necessary funds into regular repairs for streets, sidewalks, buildings and parks that have gone unattended over the last several years as we’ve kept staffing and budgets steady while the cost of work has increased. That means we simply haven’t been able to get to as much of the regular maintenance of infrastructure as has been needed. If we continued to do this, residents would eventually see crumbling sidewalks, building that needed replacement rather than maintenance, and more extreme and costly problems than we face today. Deferring maintenance is commonly referred to as being “penny wise and pound foolish” for that reason.
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Why is Extension of Learning Time in Both Packages?
The Selectmen opted to put the additional learning time in both override packages because they acknowledged that additional time is as necessary for the school system as meeting the structural deficit or addressing the maintenance issue. There is a “teaching crunch" in K-5: as content expands and teachers choose better, more time-intensive methods, they have had to carve time out of other activities in order to put time into other priority areas. This is a zero-sum game.  More time allows teachers to choose the best teaching methods without taking time away from other things.  

In the middle school years, we are woefully behind.  Of our 17 peer districts in length of day, we are last by a large margin.  The only reason we meet state requirements is because we choose to classify our middle years as "elementary" because they sit in K-8 schools.  Students who attend middle schools in other districts are held to a higher standard.  We believe we should hold ourselves to that standard in grades 6-8.  Our students need and deserve no less.

In the high school, we are shortchanging both teachers and students by cutting back on elective class time to meet science lab scheduling. We double-book students so that they miss an elective class to attend labs.  Teachers have a crazy quilt of class lists each week as a result, and students are denied a full complement of classes.  The High School also fails to attain state mandates for time and learning, and risks not meeting DOE review. The additional time will eliminate double booking and give every high school class an opportunity for an extended class period, an advantage now only enjoyed by lab sciences.  The faculty is uniformly enthusiastic about this potential scheduling change. 
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Why should I support Foreign Language instruction?

• Proficiency in a foreign language is a basic component of education in almost every developed country besides the United States. 
• Americans are deficient in foreign language and our public schools are behind in putting into practice what we know about the benefits to of early introduction to foreign language. The proposed FLES (Foreign Language in Elementary School) program would give every child who goes to school in Brookline the chance to be functionally bi-lingual by the time they graduate high school.
• The new program replaces and improves upon the earlier foreign language program implemented under a grant several years ago in Brookline.
• Although some elementary schools (such as Driscoll) had good experiences with the previous program, others were disappointed with their earlier experience.  We have learned from those years and this new proposal is very different in important ways.
• Two separate, independent committees advised the Town and Schools on how best to implement a quality K-6 Foreign Language program.
• The content-enriched program integrates well with Brookline's existing curriculum in K-6.  That is why it is affordable, and why we can implement it starting next year if the override is successful.
• Students will still be able to choose to study a different language starting in Grade 7, as they do now.  Both the K-6 language and the second language option available in Grades 7-8 will be fully supported through high school.  
• Early introduction to foreign language improves all subsequent foreign language study.  Our object is to improve foreign language learning for all our students. Starting early is the proven way to do that.
• This program is extraordinarily cost-effective.  It has a proven record of moving students to proficiency.  It would cost the median condominium owner in Brookline just $ 14/year.

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What will happen if the Override doesn’t pass?
Ballot Question 1A essentially Prevents Cuts + Improves Maintenance + Extends Learning Time. There will be substantial and immediate cuts in Town and School services if it fails. School cuts have already been put in place for FY '09.  On April 15, some 40 schools staff were given notice that their jobs (described below under School Cuts and Budget Reductions) would be eliminated should an override fail on May 6th. 

What We Will Lose If 1A fails:

School Cuts:

·      Guidance counselor staffing in the high school

·      Social work staffing in the K-8s and high school

·      All 4^th grade musical instrument instruction

·      All library assistants

·      Teaching positions at the high school and K-8s

·      A data manager who allows us to use educational dollars efficiently

 

School Budget Reductions:

·      Funding for inclusion of special education students 

·      BRYT, which helps reintegrate students into the High School after long medical absences

·      Steps to Success, which supports the academic success of students living in public housing

·      Computers and other instructional technology

·      Funding for athletics at the high school (increases in fees)

·      Funding for transportation to the high school (increases in fees, especially busing from South Brookline)

 

Town Cuts:

·      Removal of one fire-truck from service during the summer

·      Four police officers and three police cars

·      Public library staff and materials

·      Park and Recreation services

In addition, we will continue inadequate maintenance of our buildings, roads, sidewalks and parks. This year the Town and Schools found $ 500,000 of one-time monies to provide adequate funds for building maintenance. But since the monies were one-time, they will not be in next year’s budget without the May 6th override. Similarly, the Town used $ 119,000 of one-time monies to partially address the annual shortfall in funds for open space maintenance. These, too, will not be replenished if Question #1A fails.
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How much will an override cost taxpayers?
For all residential property taxpayers, the cost of the full $ 6.2 million override would represent a 4.6 percent increase over FY08 taxes. So if you paid $ 6,000 in property taxes in FY08, you’d pay $ 276 more next year if the full amount of the override passes. 

What amount you will pay is determined in part by your federal tax bracket and whether you are subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax, but to see exactly how much the override would cost you, click here. 
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About Finances and Town Services 

What is the Override Study Committee?
On April 24, 2007, the Brookline Board of Selectmen appointed an Override Study Committee (OSC) after adopting the following resolution on February 13, 2007:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Board of Selectmen seeks to evaluate whether substantially more revenue capacity than what is currently projected is unavoidably necessary in order to maintain desired levels of services. And, further, wants this evaluation to be conducted through a comprehensive and thorough examination of town finances, municipal/school expenditures and community ability to pay in comparison to other municipalities. 

Appointed OSC members were: Gordon Bennett, Eric Behrens, Lloyd Dahmen (Co-Chair), Tony Friscia,Amy Kershaw, Jeffrey Liebman, Vince McGugan (Co-Chair), Bill Schwartz, and Will Slotnick. Selectwoman Betsy DeWitt, School Committee Vice-chairman Henry Warren, and Advisory Committee Vice-chairman Neil Wishinsky served as ex-officio, non-voting members.

The committee met a total of eighteen times between May 10, 2007 and January 7, 2008. Their report (read the OSC report) recommended that the Selectmen put forward an override to cover a projected structural deficit, to pay for deferred maintenance of roads, buildings, and parks, to extend the school instructional day, and to reinstate early foreign language instruction in the public schools. The report also provided recommendations for future fiscal management to reduce the risk of budget shortfalls necessitating further overrides within 5 years. 
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What has Brookline already done to find efficiencies and control personnel costs? 
The School Department is consolidating two administrative positions that screen, interview, hire and assign substitute teachers. The Town and the School Department are working to streamline and consolidate their payroll departments in order to eliminate at least one position in the School Department payroll office. 1.4 positions will be eliminated in the schools. In addition, the School Department has put into place a number of administrative controls to eliminate or reduce absences before and after non-school days and to ensure that job-sharing does not increase health insurance costs. The Town anticipates reducing staffing in the Department of Public Works for an anticipated savings of $ 200,000.

And these are only the planned economies for next year. Since the last override, Brookline has taken numerous steps to increase efficiency and ensure good financial planning. Brookline has been rewarded for its careful budgeting and planning with one of the few triple-A bond ratings among Massachusetts communities. The Override Study Committee report Appendix IV discusses some of the changes recommended at the time of the 1994 override and their implementation.

Both the School Committee and the Selectmen have passed resolutions recently committing them to following the advice of the Override Study Committee in taking account of total compensation when negotiating wage and benefit packages.  The Town leadership has been clear about moving toward the state's Group Insurance Commission (GIC) in order to realize savings in insurance rates, and to raising revenues in other ways by working with the legislature on reimbursements for special education transportation, among other areas.
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Why haven’t rising property values given us rising revenues to meet growing expenses?
Because Proposition 2½ restricts the ability of towns to raise revenues from taxes, rising property values do not automatically increase revenues (see What is Proposition 2½?). Taking into account all sources of revenue, including state aid, fees and fines, general fund revenues are expected to rise by only 2.4% next year. With the consumer price index up 4.3% over the last twelve months, the national employee cost index for state and local government employees up 4.1% and extraordinary increases in energy and health insurance costs, revenues simply are not keeping up with expenses.
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Are Brookline’s property taxes really the highest in Massachusetts?
No. According to the Override Study Committee, when you count all taxable residential properties, Brookline’s average property tax bill is 31st in the state. How can this be? Although the tax bill on the average single-family home is high compared to some other communities (but still not the highest in the state), pointing to this as representative of Brookline is misleading. Single family homes make up only about one-fourth (25%) of the housing units in Brookline. The vast majority of property-owning residents live in condominiums, and property taxes for condominiums in Brookline are comparatively low.
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How have we avoided the overrides that so many other towns have needed?
An increasing number of Massachusetts towns have faced overrides in recent years. Brookline has been both lucky and smart since 1994 when it passed the last override, implementing many fiscal measures that allowed us to manage our budgets wisely. We have also made cuts and held Town budgets level, but some services and maintenance of roads, parks, and sidewalks have all suffered as a result. The schools have also cut administrative budgets and reduced staff when enrollments allowed them to do so. In some cases, important staff, such as social workers, have been eliminated due to budget constraints. Brookline is, according to the Override Study Committee report (view report, see What is the Override Study Committee?), administratively a lean operation.

Because we have cut in past years and raised fees and fines, we are unable to cut any more this year without sacrificing basic levels of service and quality of life. That’s why we need an override of Prop. 2½.
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What is Brookline’s “free cash” account and why can’t we use that instead?
Free cash is a technical term used by the State and is not really free. It is cash in our accounts that the Department of Revenue says that we may appropriate. Because the amount of this so-called free cash is very unpredictable and fluctuates greatly from year-to-year, our policies call for us to set these funds aside for planned capital projects (renovations, new buildings, firetrucks,etc.). Our capital improvements program is set up so that projects can be moved up or pushed back in response to fluctuations in free cash. We do not want to hire more police officers, firefighters and teachers each time the DOR says free cash has gone up and then lay them off the next year when the DOR says free cash has gone down. An average level of free cash is built into our plans for capital projects.
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Doesn’t Brookline have reserve funds for hard times like these?
Brookline has a number of reserve funds. The School Department budget includes reserves for unexpected enrollment growth is both regular and special education and another reserve for other unanticipated events. The Town budget includes a reserve fund that can be used for unanticipated expenses such as unusually large snow removal costs due to a bad winter or police overtime to deal with a tragedy such as the murders at two of our family planning clinics several years ago. The Town maintains other reserves to address litigation, tax abatements, etc. We must maintain these reserves to deal with unexpected emergencies and to protect the town’s good bond rating that allows us to borrow funds for large projects. The Override Study Committee agreed that these are NOT excess funds, and that they should remain separate from the operating budget if Brookline is to remain fiscally stable.
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About the School Day, Administration, and Programs

How did the Schools Decide on 20 Minutes per day?
The 20 minutes/day was an amount of time determined by principals, coordinators, and teachers to be the minimum necessary to address key issues of teaching and learning at the elementary, middle and high school levels. It became the focus of the contract negotiations because it added significant value and solved problems at all grade levels.

The 21st century classroom is rapidly changing: it is a dynamic environment where children learn by working with increasingly complex information and materials. Interaction with teachers and with one another is at the center of the learning experience in Brookline. As we try to do more hands-on learning with more diverse learners, especially in core areas such as math and science, classes need extended time. Otherwise, we shave off time from other activities and learning, teaching is compromised, and our students are shortchanged.

In addition, Massachusetts has-been revising and raising its curricular content and learning standards, and Brookline has made several additions and adjustments in the past several years to meet these appropriately higher standards for time and learning. This has involved adding classes in some cases (at the high school) and enhancing content at the elementary level. Mandatory testing, too, has placed significant demands on the school year and on teaching time for regular subject areas. With just six hours, Brookline is falling behind what is considered adequate for the demands of today’s educational expectations, and has already fallen behind peer districts whose days are significantly longer, especially in the middle and high school years (read one parent’s views on the school day).
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How will the Schools use the extra learning time?
In K-5, time is teachers’ most precious resource: they will use the time to emphasize hands-on learning, and focus on find the best methods especially in math, science and language arts, rather than the fastest methods.

In 6-8, our student school day is woefully short, in the words of the Superintendent. Only because we classify those grades as “elementary school” do we satisfy state time and learning requirements, which are lower for elementary school. If compared to peer districts, we have the shortest day. The extra time would give us the ability to begin to come up to par with other middle grades, and to add longer learning blocks for all our core classes.  Just as important, students who use the learning centers will no longer have to choose between receiving needed services to support their learning and taking 7th grade foreign language, a "choice" many have had to make because the schedule simply cannot accommodate both.  As a result, only 85% of our students receive the full middle-years curriculum (which includes foreign language) in 2008.

In the High School, the extra time will be implemented by revising the schedule to allow all classes to have an extended block during every weekly cycle. This will include electives, and will eliminate the use of “Y-blocking,” the practice of taking students away from a scheduled elective class in order to attend an extended science lab, while still giving course credit for both classes.

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Is it true that Brookline isn’t meeting state Time & Learning requirements for middle school and high school? Why do we need an override to comply with the law?
It is true that many Brookline high school students do not meet the required 990 hours for high school because the school day is too short to accommodate all the classes that now make up a Brookline educational experience. Similarly, our middle school years only comply with an elementary standard typically governing K-5 schools. Because we run K-8 schools, we “get away” with having a very short day for our 6-8 graders compared to our typically used comparison districts.

Whether or not we are in compliance, changing the teachers’ contractual day requires negotiation of a contract, so we cannot simply lengthen the school day by declaring it longer. In the last contract negotiations, knowing that we needed more time to meet requirements -- especially for the middle grades and high school -- we negotiated the right to extend the school day in exchange for an adjustment to teacher salaries that made us more competitive for attracting and retaining the best teachers. That adjustment, however, is dependent on the Town having the revenue needed to put it in place. That is a core reason for the override. Extending the school day does not add employees to the system, however. It is fully funded by this override. 

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What will the new foreign language program look like? 
Every student in Brookline will begin a foreign language starting in Kindergarten. Each elementary school will choose to be either a Spanish K-6 school or a Mandarin (Chinese) K-6 School.  Principals will work with parents, teachers and the Superintendent to decide which language the school will choose.

The program model recommended for Brookline's K-6 World Language is Content-Enriched FLES (Foreign Language in the Elementary School). Content-Enriched FLES programs are those in which language lessons are integrated with classes in other subject areas (social studies, science, math, etc.) to reinforce the subject area knowledge and present material in meaningful contexts. Language teachers and classroom teachers work together, rather than language being separated out as a “special” class.  

Instruction, by grade, looks like this: 
Grades K-2: 3 sessions x 20minutes = 60minutes/week
Grades 3-6: 3 sessions x 30minutes = 90 minutes/week 

In 7th grade, just as they do now, students would be given a choice of two languages to study more formally.  One language will be whatever is chosen for the school's K-6 program.  The other would be either Spanish or French as we already have in place.  In high school, as currently, all elementary language choices will be fully supported.

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Is this the same program Brookline had a few years ago when there was early foreign language?
NO. Several years ago, Brookline received grant funding that allowed us to implement early foreign language study at all our elementary schools for three years. At the time, we received the grant notice very late and our language program was not well planned or consistently implemented across the schools. There was no standard curriculum, each school took a different approach, some teachers were better prepared than others, and we had no professional support for teachers. Some schools had good experiences; others were very dissatisfied.  As a system, after the grant funding ran out and the program was eliminated because of lack of system funding, we decided that we needed to devote funds to study how to develop a better early foreign language program so that, when secure funds became available, we would be able to “do it right.” Two different committees studied the issue and their reports and advice informed the proposal now before us. It is completely different from what was done before at most of the schools.  The one exception is the Driscoll school, where a separate grant allowed development of a different model, and the school continued a program that is much closer to (although not the same as) the program being proposed for Brookline.
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Has this World Language curriculum been used anywhere else?
The K-6 World Language proposal is based on current pedagogical research about effective approaches to language acquisition. It meets the rigorous expectations of the Massachusetts Foreign Languages Curriculum Framework as well as the nationally established standards for foreign language education. The three overall goals are:

•  To acquire proficiency in speaking, listening, reading and writing the target language;
•  To reinforce learning of the general curriculum content through the study of a world language; and
•  To acquire an understanding of and appreciation for other cultures.

The FLES model has been successfully implemented in Glastonbury, CT for the past 50 years with excellent results.  There are also numerous programs that have similarities that the Committee looked at in Massachusetts and elsewhere.  Brookline schools personnel conducted site visits to see the FLES model in action, and we are confident that the program will fit well with Brookline’s other curriculum and overall learning environment. 
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I’ve heard enrollments are growing, but also that they’ve declined. Which is right?
Since the last override in 1994, total enrollment K-12 has remained virtually constant (5,911 in 1994 v. 5,920in 2008). Total enrollment has grown somewhat more if we include enrollment in pre-kindergarten programs which serve special education students as required by law and fee-paying regular education students. Enrollments are somewhat down from their 1997 peak and up from their 2005 nadir, but over the longer-run they have been flat. Next year, however, given the current level of kindergarten enrollments, we anticipate an increase of one hundred or more students. 
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Why have the schools added so many employees since the last override in 1994?
Of the 227 new employees since 1994, fully 2/3 (156 employees) were mandated by law to meet growth in special education enrollment. The vast majority of the remaining 71 positions added over the same 14-year period were hired because of additional state requirements and important educational expectations. 
Specifically: 
· Brookline increased graduation requirements to meet changes in time and learning mandates by the state. This required us to provide additional courses and course sections in science, math, social studies and foreign languages. 
· Math and literacy specialists were hired both for the high school and the elementary schools to bolster initiatives that significantly strengthened learning in both core subjects and helped our students meet the requirements of MCAS and our schools to address the demands of the federal No Child Left Behind law.
· School nurse staffing was increased to allow each elementary school to have its own full-time nurse 
· The Kindergarten program was extended to a full-day program in 2001. 
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How much do we really spend per pupil compared with other school districts in the state?
Of the 318 school districts reporting 2007 expenditures to the state Department of Education, Brookline ranks 45^th in total school spending per pupil. This figure includes spending on regular and special education students, including those sent out of district.  It also includes all other school spending, such as transportation, buildings, supplies, etc.