Westfield’s School Budget Looks Deliberate, But Not Beyond Scrutiny

Westfield is next, and unlike some of the other districts, it actually gave the public a little more to work with.

While Westfield, like every other District we’ve covered so far, did not share it’s user friendly budget before the meeting it did have its presentation posted so points for that.

Getting to the top line numbers we find a tentative budget of $146,733,614 for 26-27 built on $16,848,519 in revenues and $129,882,095 in taxes. There’s a $1,265,000 capital reserve withdrawal, a $1,500,000 surplus appropriation, a $5,206,337 health benefits adjustment and a max. travel expenditure of $500,000. The public hearing is on April 7 at 7:00 p.m.

The Slide Deck adds a bit more context…
-State aid moves up ~500k from $8,900,108 to $9,434,114 which the District plans on using to offset taxes this coming year.
-Despite the offset, the budget still carries a 5.97% tax increase which leaves nearly 400k in banked cap.
-Cuts were made to professional services, furniture (sorry third grade), tech, staff adjustments, property and liability insurance, supply line and no additional staff for expanding programs

Within our 7-District ACFR Set Westfield isn’t one of the high-rollers when it comes to spending ranking 5th out of 7 in total per pupil cost, 6th in total instruction and dead last in total administration.

In between the lines there’s a bit more complexity as it ranks first in basic skills and remedial spending, 2nd in health services and employee benefits and third in Administrative IT.

On the other side, it ranks 7th out of 7 in school administration, facility maintenance and cocurricular activities. It ranks 6th in athletics, bilingual education, regular programs and improvement of instruction and 5th in textbooks.

So Westfield comes off as a different kind of budget story.

It’s definitely not Berkeley Heights pouring money into everything a Consultant, Mayor or anyone with a badge tells them is a good idea. And it is not New Providence either, where we see lean spending and strong results.

Westfield sits more in the middle with some higher-cost pockets and lower-cost core and operational categories.

So how does this spending line up with academic performance?

On our school performance dashboard Westfield is still behind on its pre-Covid ELA performance but held steady on its ELA growth and the math decline is within typical range. Westfield falls almost squarely in the middle of the 7 District set in Math, ELA and Science proficiency rates. It’s done an excellent job in reducing chronic absenteeism dropping to 2.3% from 3.5% in 2018-19.

So we’re dealing with a slimmer pathway when it comes to questions – the budget points to deliberate choices being made – but those questions are still important.

If total administration is dead last, why are employee benefits and admin IT still relatively high?

With basic skills and related services sitting near the top, why do regular programs, textbooks, and improvement of instruction sit closer to the bottom?

What do the cuts we see in the presentation mean on the ground when it comes to impact on learning?

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