Finance Committee Skeptical About School Budget 

The meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded. The recording can be viewed here.

Present
Bob Hegner (Chair, District 5), Cathy Schoen (District 1), Mandi Jo Hanneke (at large), Andy Steinberg (at large). Ellisha Walker (at large), joined the meeting at 2:27 Absent: Bernie Kubiak (non-voting member), Matt Holloway (non-voting member).

Staff: Athena O’Keeffe (Clerk of Council), Holly Drake (Comptroller), Sarah Marshall (Chair, Amherst School Committee)

Five members of the public were present on Zoom including Jennifer Shiao (Amherst Representative to the Regional School Committee), and Debra Leonard (Amherst Representative to the Regional School Committee). Clerk of Council Athena O’Keeffe recommended that neither Shiao nor Leonard could be officially brought into the meeting to participate because, with Sarah Marshall’s presence, the three constituted a quorum of the Amherst School Committee and their unannounced gathering would be in violation of Open Meeting Law. But they were permitted to speak as individuals during public comment.   

O’Keeffe confirmed that a quorum of the Finance Committee is determined by the number of voting members present and hence is three voting members.

School Budget
The focus of this meeting was the regional school budget which was referred to the Finance Committee at the Town Council Meeting of April 1.  The budget that the school committee approved on March 13 was more than $1 million over the budget guidance set by the Town Manager.  (See the full RSC approved budget here.) The larger budget would allow the district to avoid eliminating 14 student-facing positions (educators and advisors) and would avoid significant cuts to the world language program at the Middle School, but would still be $750,000 short of level funding services from FY 24.

Chair Bob Hegner announced the timetable for the Finance Committee discussion of the regional school budget and voting on a recommendation to the Town Council.

• April 16: in-depth review of the regional school budget.
• April 20: Four Towns Meeting to discuss the school budget.
• April 25: public hearing on the regional school budget – 6:30 p.m.  This will be followed by a meeting of the Finance Committee for discussion and a vote on a recommendation to the Town Council.  It was not decided whether the hearing would be held solely on Zoom or in hybrid format with an in-person presence in the Town Room of Town Hall.
• April 29: Town Council vote on the FY25 budget

All members of the committee prefaced their remarks with a strong commitment to quality education in Amherst, but then Hegner, Steinberg, and Hanneke expressed strong doubts about the prospects for finding a pathway to funding the proposed budget.  Steinberg and Hanneke were adamant that it was not possible to draw on the town’s reserves (now estimated to contain about $24 million ) as they are needed to support construction of a fire station and a DPW building.  They said that they could not envision any other aspect of the town budget that could be cut by $700,000 to provide the additional funds needed to support the RSC budget request.  

Cathy Schoen said she had concerns as well, but left open the possibility of  providing some additional funds, though not the additional $700,000 that was needed to avoid program and critical personnel cuts.  She wondered what the district might do with an additional $200,000 and asked the School Committee to figure out what they might do with that sum.  The emphasis in the discussion centered on how meeting the budget requested by the school committee would undermine other budget priorities in town, the general lack of discretionary funds in the operating budget, and that the district had failed to plan for the current budget shortfall and was not dealing realistically with the dramatic changes in public education that were impacting schools across the commonwealth.  The committee members also underscored that this problem is not unique to Amherst and they expressed resignation about the larger issue of inadequate funding for eduction, which seems to be plaguing school districts nationally.

However, RSC member Jennifer Shiao, speaking during public comment, suggested Amherst’s crisis could be averted if we choose to do so.  She offered several pathways for addressing the budget crisis (see below), rather than just accepting further cuts to the schools. She acknowledged that some of these options might be long shots but emphasized that there were several things the town could try if it could muster the money to get through the coming year without further degrading education in the district. She encouraged the Finance Committee to seek solutions instead of just giving up.

Discussion
Hegner prefaced the committee discussion saying “We all share the goal of providing a quality education for every child in Amherst. But the landscape under which we try to do this has changed and poses many new challenges.  Additional funding by itself will not address all of these concerns. We need to think about how we can restructure the education system so we can meet these goals within the existing landscape and budget structures.  We need to adapt to the current circumstances.”

Andy Steinberg agreed with Hegner that “we value education in Amherst and we are not different from other municipalities in that it is by far the largest expense in our budget.  But we need to grapple with what are our limits and are we at a point where the costs are just greater than the growth in our revenues such that the school budget undermines other necessary expenditures.” Steinberg criticized a public comment from the previous night’s Town Council meeting suggesting cuts to the police department budget to cover the school district budget shortfall.  He argued that the police department is already understaffed, and any budget reduction would eliminate its capacity to provide the town with 24/7 coverage.

Steinberg suggested that the committee invite Sandy Pooler, a former Amherst town finance director who was recently brought back as a part-time financial consultant, to speak to the Finance Committee about where he sees concrete options for meeting the proposed RSC budget. 

Steniberg added “It seems likely that if we took the money from a one-time source, like reserves, we’ll be in the same position a year from now. So that option doesn’t really seem viable.  What’s to be gained by postponing the hard decision for a year?” he asked.

Mandi Jo Hannke said that she seconds everything that Steinberg said.  “If we find the $700,000 it is effectively a permanent addition to the base budget. The schools are not asking for a one- year fix but a permanent fix and so we will have to find the $700,000 every year hereafter and this is well above what we thought we can afford next year. And so we can’t fund it out of reserves because reserves can’t cover this additional add in each subsequent year.  The request is just not sustainable,” she said. 

Hanneke continued. “The schools are asking for $2.4 million of the $2.9 million available for the increase in the total operating budget for the town and that’s just not feasible.  What kind of cuts in general government would we need to make to shift the extra $700,000 to the schools?” she asked.  “As Andy pointed out, it’s the entire CRESS department plus.  We’re barely a 24/7 public safety system now and any cuts to that would make 24/7 coverage impossible.”  

Hanneke said that it appears that the schools knew this budget crisis was coming and didn’t make any plans for it. “I’d like to see what the district plans to do over the next 4-5 years,” she said.

Ellisha Walker said that she too would like to know what kind of planning has been happening on the part of both the Amherst School Committee and the Regional School Committee but this is made difficult by the fact that half the school committee and the school superintendent had resigned in the last year. ( The current Interim Superintendent Doug Slaughter was the district’s finance director last year). Walker added that the assertion that public safety is operating at minimum staffing is news to her and asked for confirmation of the situation at the police department.

Schoen said she wanted to see more data from the RSC before deliberating on the budget itself. She said she would like to see data on staffing trends and enrollment trends. She noted that the State’s distribution of revenues from the “millionaires tax” (The Fair Share Amendment)  has not provided the kind of support for K-12 education that the schools might have expected.  She said, “We need to join with other schools who got hit by the student opportunity act formula and work with them to get more state funding for K-12.  There is a large flaw in the state funding formulas and we need to be talking about that as well.”

Hegner suggested that another option for cutting costs would be to have more ARHS students taking courses at the colleges.

Public Comment
Jennifer Shiao, an Amherst representative on the RSC and speaking from the audience, addressed Steinberg.  She said, “Andy, you asked what is to be gained by delaying the inevitable? There’s a lot to be gained, for example, another year of middle school students who can complete a full year of language study.  And having a restorative justice coordinator in place to guide vulnerable students in resolving the challenges that they face.  Who knows what might happen in a year?  Maybe state funding will go up.  We don’t know what will happen over the year.   This (larger budget) was originally proposed by us as a one-time gift to get us from this year to next. It’s not up to the district whether we add this request to the base (budget).  That’s the Town Council’s decision. 

Shiao went on to challenge the idea that drastic cuts to the schools are inevitable, offering a list of initiatives that the RSC could undertake.  “I have suggested that we do a Proposition 2 1/2  override for FY 26.  My plan for the future is that the RSC put together a revenue subcommittee to bring in more revenue.  We can make appeals to the colleges. We’re already doing that.  We can lobby the state government.  We can get to work on all of this once we complete the hiring of a new superintendent. I see a possibility of climbing out of this hole for FY 26.”

Deb Leonard, an Amherst representative on the RSC speaking from the audience, said that she was deeply concerned that we are increasing guidance caseload from 210 to 240, which is near the recommended  maximum,  while the need for guidance and support is as great as it’s ever been.  “It’s not like the trauma of the pandemic disappeared with the pandemic,” she said.

Allegra Clark (resident of District 2) spoke in support of the RSC and their efforts to build a budget that did not require drastic cuts.   She emphasized the need to restore positions, such as that of the Restorative Justice coordinator, that would support students. She said she would like to see the town work with the RSC to ensure that the vulnerable staff/educator positions are restored.