Tim4BR

“Children are not a distraction from more important work… They ARE the important work…”

My remarks on the FY26 BR budget:

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “discontent is the
want of self-reliance”… so I guess to a certain extent, lack of self-reliance leads to discontent…

I want to take a few minutes to talk about the two pillars upon which the district relies for funding: the state and our towns. I will also speak about how the district’s lack of self-reliance leads to OUR discontent…

Tonight, I want to compare, over a long period of time, the trends in state vs town funding of our district. Everything I am about to talk about is based on a concept the state invented called “net school spending” which is basically a way for the state to determine how much every school district is spending on actually educating its students.

I believe it is important to take a long view of the support our two pillars are providing because while a snapshot captures a moment in time, a movie is much better at telling a story.

All my numbers will be per pupil based so that there is consistency with changes in enrollment over the years and all my numbers have been verified by me on the DESE website and validated by our administration. In fy07, chapter 70 aid was $3,491 per pupil, 46% of our budget. In the last fiscal year that the state reports, fy23, that aid is $5,004 per pupil, 36% of our budget.

If you take the time to do the math, which, for anyone who knows me I did, this is an average increase in state aid, on a per pupil basis of 2.3% per year. Looking at the same time period, our member towns had to fill in the gap for the rest of the district’s spending… during that time, their support went from $4,721 per pupil to $8,856 per pupil… this is an 4.0% increase per pupil per year…

2.3% per year from the state, 4% per year from
our towns… had the state kept up their commitment to the district as much as our member towns had, BR would have $9.3 million more dollars in our current year budget which would alleviate a lot of problems… not ALL but a lot…

Yes, the governor has recommended a substantial increase in Chapter 70 THIS YEAR, and while we are certainly grateful for it, I will note one year can’t reverse a decade long trend.

The increase in our budget that the superintendent has requested is substantial. There’s no denying it is asking a heavy burden from our member towns.

We certainly recognize our member towns face many competing claims for their resources… Bristol Plymouth, a Public Safety Complex, Road and Bridges… Water Quality, Road Quality, Water Supply… Challenges abound for our two communities…

But in thirty years of serving Bridgewater and Raynham, I hope I have learned one thing about our residents… When confronted by a challenge, people in Bridgewater and Raynham rise to meet it.

We have great challenges in front of us… but we CAN and we WILL meet them… Too long we have asked our schools, our public safety departments, our DPWs, to do “MORE with LESS” at some point, we have to allow these folks to “do MORE with MORE” and I suggest it is this year that we need to do this…

I would just like to say that EVERYONE, EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE BR COMMUNITY will HAVE to be part of this solution, everyone.

EVERYONE will have to give up something important, everyone will have to decide if their own interests are more important than our towns’ and our district’s….

There is no way we can be all things to all people, but we can work and do our best. To this end, I’m calling on the school committee budget subcommittee, the Raynham Board of Selectmen, and the Bridgewater Town Council to begin meeting on a weekly basis to present the best budget possible for each town as we enter this budget season in full swing.

And I am hoping the district can come to the table with a concrete plan to cut at least 5%, with a goal of 10%, from its non-personnel budget.

As I said at the beginning of my discussion,
discontent is the want of self reliance, but
my faith in the self reliance of the people of
Bridgewater and Raynham make me believe
we can and will succeed in leading our
towns and school district forward at this
crossroads. We do not need to nor should we
surrender to discontent… let’s move us all
forward together… contentedly…

ALERT!

Tonight’s school committee meeting has been moved from the lecture hall to the auditorium to accommodate the expected crowd.

I have been assured audio will be sufficient for those in attendance and those following along on YouTube

Open letter to Governor Healey:

Dear Gov Healey,

If state legislators merit an 11% raise, school districts across the Commonwealth deserve AT LEAST that much of an increase in state aid to education.

Anything less is an abject abdication of YOUR responsibility to each and every public school student in Massachusetts.

Please address this inequity,

Tim Fitzgibbons

Gov. Maura Healey orders 11% pay raise for Mass. lawmakers in 2025 Gov. Maura Healey ordered an 11% increase in the base salaries of Massachusetts legislators on Tuesday, according to State House News Service.