EXTRA...

Sticker shock school budget for Harwich

TODAY's quote: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." - Derek Bok.

Draft school budget gives Harwich sticker shock

Biggest extra cost in FY 13, $1,185,813, for 8 new special education students

   The Ashland High School in Massachusetts will be the style for the new Monomoy High School.

Carolyn Cragin, the new Monomoy School District Superintendent, showed her draft budget for the new district last week, and it had a couple of shocks for Harwich voters.  Because the two towns' elementary school are a part of the district budget for 2013, the incensed potential is shared by both towns. After the new high school is open in September 2014, the two towns will again control their own elementary schools and their budgets.

The Cape Cod Chronicle reports that while rough projections last year called for Harwich taxpayers to be spending about $400,000 more on education in the first year of the region, the draft budget this week hints that the extra cost could be as much as $2.4 million. 

Three-quarters of that extra expense would be to cover the cost of eight new special education students. Because of a reporting error, an item about the Monomoy Regional School District budget proposal for fiscal 2013 included an incorrect estimate of increased special education costs. The costs are expected to be $1,185,813 higher than predicted.

Special Education cost to increase 63 percent in one year

The Special Education goes from $1,872,796 in the FY 12, to $3,058,609 in FY  13, which is $1,185,813, and represents an increase of 63.3 percent.  Local districts have no control over the Special Education costs as they are mandated by the state.

Click here to read the FY13 budget presentation.

Ashland High School style chosen for new regional school

Monomoy regional school officials also revealed this week that they have chosen the Ashland High School as the design model for the new Monomoy Regional High School scheduled to open in September of 2014.

In a unanimous vote Thursday evening, the building committee expressed its support for the design, which features a bright, open layout and "neighborhoods" of classrooms, public spaces and administration rooms off a central hallway.

The predictable objections will probably be that the design is not "Cape Coddy" enough.

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