Superintendent’s Goals for School Year: Budget

Editor’s note: This is the final part of a four-part series that takes a look at the goals of Medfield Superintendent of Schools, Bob Maguire, who broke each down into four categories.

The economic climate is not getting any easier for towns and school districts across the country and throughout the Commonwealth in terms of operating budgets and the same can be said for Medfield.

Superintendent of Schools Bob Maguire expects the district to face more budget challenges both presently and in the forseeable future.

"We are still going to be facing some challenging times," Maguire said. "We really need to keep our eye on and focused on using those resources well and being creative and I think that’s something that is going to be an on-going challenge."

Last budget season, in order for the school and other town departments to receive funding it deemed necessary to operate at levels residents have come to expect.

For the school department, the override meant academic programs and staff positions would not be drastically cut or negatively impacted. It was the efforts of Maguire and his administration, the school committee and the warrant committee as well as support from both residents and town officials that made the current budget figures work, while still providing high-level service and curriculum to the district's students.

Maguire said it is a goal to continue weathering the economic storm and work with those same committees and officials in ensuring Medfield students continue to get the most out of their education.

"We’ve managed through some pretty difficult times and we’ve done well," Maguire said. "If you really look at what we’ve been through and look at how [the school committee has] made the focus on the classroom, [the committee has] maintained programs and we still offer what I believe to be an outstanding school system."

Maguire said while both the state of Massachusetts and the country continue to recover from a recession, there's not much relief in terms of funding at the federal level.

"We’ve gone through some really challenging times over the last couple of years," Maguire said. "The great recession of 2007, which ended in 2009. There’s a lot of talk about what’s going on now and recovery and certainly some of the stuff that has happened at the federal level. I don’t know what the affect is going to be in terms of [Medfield] but I can’t imagine it’s good. We don’t know the scope of what’s going to happen with some of these changes that are happening at the federal level."

Maguire and the school department will make it a collective goal to prepare for the unknown as the town's school administration readies for another challenging budget season.

To read part one of this series, "Superintendent's Goals for School Year: Technology," .

To read part two of this series, "Superintendent's Goals for School Year: Global Competency,"

To read part three of this series, "Superintendent's Goals for School Year: Facilities,"