Town Poised to Recommend Additional Funding for Regional Schools

Report on the Meeting of the Amherst Finance Committee, May 28, 2024

This meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded. It can be viewed here.

Present: Bob Hegner (Chair, District 5), Cathy Schoen (District 1), Andy Steinberg (at large), Mandi Jo Hanneke (at large), Ellisha Walker (at large), and Bernie Kubiak and Matt Holloway (non voting members)

Staff: Paul Bockelman (Town Manager) and Athena O’Keeffe (Clerk of the Council)

The Amherst-Pelham regional schools requested an additional $355,000 from the Town of Amherst to preserve some of the 20 positions that would be lost if the schools adheres to the four percent budget increase over fiscal year 2024 contained in the Town Manager’s budget submitted to the Town Council (see also here and here).

Town Manager Paul Bockelman told the Finance Committee that he does not want to saddle the incoming school superintendent with a challenging budget problem and would like to find a source for the requested additional funds. He said that the only sources available for this money are one-time sources for this coming year only. He suggested using the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) funds that were slated for additional canopy solar panels over the parking lot at the new Fort River Elementary School. One million dollars of ARPA funding was designated for that project.

Finance Committee member Cathy Schoen (District 1) said she thought the Finance Committee would be presented with a range of options for the additional school money. She pointed to the $1.2 million budgeted for debt service on the Jones Library expansion project in the FY2025 budget that will not be needed next year for the project. She also suggested removing a portion of the proposed track and field project, such as the lighting, and asking the other regional towns to allocate Community Preservation fund money next year to it. In addition, she noted that using ARPA funds under consideration for other potential recipients , such as for a youth center or to upgrade part of the Bangs Center, that do not yet have specific plans, might be preferred over  the solar canopies, which she thought might be able to provide most of the electricity for Crocker Farm school and will provide the town with federal energy rebates.

Bockelman replied that it is his job, not the council’s, to figure out the sources of additional funds. 

Mandi Jo Hanneke (at large) also questioned the use of the money for solar canopies to fill a one year gap in the regional school budget when the electricity from the canopies would decrease the town’s operating costs for 20 or 30 years. She added that Massachusetts General Law allows the council to increase funding for one area of the budget by decreasing another area and that Bockelman’s proposal to use ARPA funds would make that provision at the council’s discretion unnecessary. The council can override the town manager’s budget suggestions with a two-thirds vote.

Bockelman responded that he does not want to take money from the capital fund because that might reduce the town’s bond rating. Also, he said, using ARPA funds for the school budget would not require him to revise the FY2025 budget. He stressed the need for the community as a whole to plan for future school budgets. Non voting Finance Committee member Bernie Kubiac agreed, saying that jeopardizing the town’s bond rating could result in increased interest rates for borrowing for future capital projects, such as the new fire station and DPW facility. 

Andy Steinberg (at large) agreed with the one-time increase in regional school funding for FY2025, but said the schools need a long-term budget plan. He stated that every year the schools ask for more money, and it is exhausting to have to deal with deficits every year. He also said that there are too many questions  about the future of the library project to reallocate any of the town’s funding for it.  He disagreed with the way the schools create their budgets, starting with a figure that provides level services and then cutting items to meet the available funding rather than determining what is essential to provide needed programming.

Regional School Committee member Bridget Hynes countered that the three other towns in the regional system raised the schools’ budget by six percent and intend to use that figure as a base level for future budgets. She also said that the school budgeting expert who met with the school committee earlier in the year recommended starting with a level services budget because it is  the best way to preserve educational quality. She disagreed with giving each portion of the town budget the same increase when the needs of the schools are out of proportion to anything seen before in education with increasing needs of students after the pandemic and very little increase in state funding. 

Interim School Superintendent Doug Slaughter said that when the FY 2025 regional school budget was first discussed at the February Four Towns meeting, he knew that cuts in staffing would be needed but when the magnitude of the cuts was specified, he and the school committee realized that their effect on the educational programming  were unacceptable. The committee asked him to submit a revised budget, maintaining most student-facing positions. That is the six percent increase budget now being debated.

Kubiac said that in principle he disagrees with using one-time funding sources for ongoing operating expenses. He added, “I don’t trust this budget deficit will be fixed in a year.”

The Finance Committee decided to continue to discuss the Regional School budget at its May 31 meeting.

At the Regional School Committee meeting that took place later in the day, Slaughter did not specify which staff positions would be cut. He said “the educational professionals [are] still working to reconcile positions with the budget” and that it looks like one special education teacher, a middle school adjustment counselor, and guidance counselors at the high school and middle school would be restored. He did not mention the middle school foreign language teachers or the restorative justice coordinators that were also slated to be eliminated in the earlier budget draft..