During what was surely a grueling budget process this year, the School Committee regularly met with the Finance Committee in a subcommittee to prepare and finalize details of the fiscal year 2024 budget for the town’s public schools, a process only complicated by the budget deficit the town faces. The committee also heard public comment at many of its meetings, with feedback from residents seen as a useful tool as it developed its budget priorities.
Forty years ago, that process looked a little different.
The School Committee in July 1983 formed an advisory committee for budget matters, and despite the suggestion in its name that the committee would advise the broader School Committee, it was given no authority over the budget or any powers of recommendation. Instead, School Committee member Paul Warren, who moved to create the advisory group, said, the committee would serve as “research and information group.”
The appointed group was set to be comprised not of School Committee members or parents, but, as Committee member Dexter Bucklin put it, “average taxpayers who foot the school bill and have no direct interest in the school system.” The committee intended to submit five to seven residents to the new group.
The committee also established a schedule of reporting, calling for data on finances, revenue raising, and other future money matters to be available by Sept. 15, data on space utilization by Oct. 20, and data to be utilized for presentation at Town Meeting by Nov. 17.