By funding several special education positions in the district through an $846,000 grant, Triton expects to receive federal stimulus funds. Halloran will announce she was able to restore five of the 10 original layoffs she had planned to make.
But missing from tonight's discussion will be any talk about whether the Triton teachers union is amenable to freezing the 3 percent raise built into its contract. Halloran has yet to hear from the union.
If all five unions were to give up their raises for the coming year, the district would save $900,000.
"The president (Susan Densmore) is meeting with groups of teachers after school," Halloran said. "I'm kind of hoping I'll hear by the end of the week."
Halloran made an overture to the teachers union in early February, asking them to consider opening their contracts and renegotiating either the 3 percent general raise teachers are expecting, the 2 percent step raises that 40 percent of the teachers are expecting or perhaps making a change of health care benefits in order to respond to the economic crisis facing schools throughout the state and country.
"We still have some questions for the administration," Densmore said at the time. "We'd like to know: How is the stimulus money going to affect the needs of the district and where is the state budget going to land?"
Though the stimulus money Triton is expecting has helped somewhat, the money is split over the course of two years and has restrictions on how it may be used. Triton recently learned it would not be among the 155 community districts receiving funding through the first round of $167 million in federal stimulus money. The governor will be disbursing an additional $509 million in the coming months, but as things stand right now, there are some cuts over this school year on tonight's agenda.
"We're still missing a teacher at each of the elementary schools, a teacher at the high school and a teacher at the middle school," said Halloran of the compromise budget. "We're missing parts of positions as well — in art, music and physical education, which is down from 1.0 to .8 positions."
The reading specialists and math specialists who were employed full time this year at each of the elementary schools have also been cut in next year's budget — from 1.0 to .5 positions, Halloran said. And where all three elementary schools — Salisbury, Newbury and Pine Grove — each enjoyed a full-time librarian this year, next year one librarian will do the job of all three with some help from a library aide at each location to keep the room open throughout the day.
The new budget totals $34,578,542 and results in a decrease of Salisbury's assessment by $118,000 from last year's amount. Rowley's contribution will go down by $119,387 and Newbury's will rise by $137,419. Newbury leaders have expressed support for the new figure, which represents a savings over the last proposed budget, which required they pay $263,000 more over last year.
Salisbury and Rowley have also expressed support for the new compromise budget.
"I don't want to be too critical either way because Rowley's getting a reduced assessment," said Rowley selectmen Chairman Dave Petersen, who expressed hope the teachers would contribute some of their pay raise this year in order to keep services and programs intact, and allow Newbury a reduced assessment.
"What I was looking for was for teachers to kick something in," he said. "I just felt it would be good for the system as a whole for the teachers to take a little bit of a hit anyway, to have some role in what's gong on here."
While Halloran has approached the teachers union on a potential raise freeze, she said she's not yet approached the other groups — custodians, cafeteria staff and instructional assistants.
"I have not talked to representatives from those groups because I'm still waiting to hear back from the teachers," Halloran said.
Densmore did not return a call seeking comment on this story.
Tonight's School Committee meeting will begin at 7 at Newbury Elementary School.
