9 thoughts on “FY23 Watertown School Budget Adds Funds for Several Positions

    • Makes sense to me. Have a current teacher/administrator/aide in each school oversee that school’s work in carrying out the recommendations in the 97-page equity audit the system paid for. And give each of those folks a $4000 bump in salary to carry out the important, added work they’re doing.

      • Precisely. There are lots of roles filled by current staff with a stipend to compensate for the extra work. I don’t think the model of how to do the work is what concerns some people…it’s the fact that there is a focus on equity as a priority.

    • Hopefully a set of programs/initiatives recommended by the audit and community to make sure Watertown public schools don’t end up on the national news again for the wrong reasons.

    • I’d suggest you leaf through the report in the above link. It gives a pretty comprehensive overview of what students, administrators, teachers, and others think about the state of our schools when it comes to equity, and it lays out some suggested next steps to take.

      • John don’t waste your breath. People who choose not to care about equity, diversity, and inclusion won’t support this initiative, no matter what.

  1. As a Watertown taxpayer I’m trying to make sense of this:
    “No budget area has increase significantly, Galdston said, but the Administration and Curriculum budget appears to be much higher than FY22 (46.8 percent more). The increase is due to the money the district has set aside for potential increases as a result of contract negotiations with the district’s unions.”

    What exactly does “set aside” mean? I have no problem with negotiated pay increases for people educating our kids, but why claim “no significant increase” when 46.8% added to the budget clearly is a significant increase?

    • Thanks for your comment. Yes, it is a bit confusing. The set aside is the money budgeted for possible salary increases after the next contracts are settled with the school unions. Looking at the budget presentation (see page 18 here https://drive.google.com/file/d/131ScOuDqMzVJ91hY1n1P8Vn78u8gw8ji/view), there is $1.3 million added to the Administration and Curriculum budget (total of $4.1 million). The funding for salaries for unions (teachers, aids, etc.) will end up in the Regular Day budget, which is $26.7 million. If the entire $1.3 million was used on that it would be a 4.8 percent increase for Regular Day. I’m not sure that all of the money is for salaries or that all would go to Regular Day. It could also go into Student Services or other areas.

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