Councilor Devlin Gauthier Asks for More Money for Schools

Report on the Meeting of the Amherst Finance Committee, March 4, 2025

This meeting was held over Zoom and was recorded.

Present
Cathy Schoen (District 1, Chair), Bob Hegner (District 5), Mandi Jo Hanneke, Andy Steinberg, and Ellisha Walker (at large). Nonvoting member: Tom Porter. Absent: Bernie Kubiak (nonvoting member). Staff: Paul Bockelman (Town Manager), Melissa Zawadzki (Finance Director), and Holly Drake (Comptroller)

More Money for Schools
Although the town Finance Department has decided that it can afford a four percent increase over FY2025 expenditures for all departments in FY2026, Town Councilor Ana Devlin Gauthier (District 5), speaking as an individual at the Finance Committee meeting on March 4, gave an impassioned plea for the schools to receive a 4.5 to 5% increase in their budgets. “We know that the costs of education have increased in ways that [costs and services in] other departments simply have not,” she said. “The methods of delivery have become more expensive for education. For example, where schools used to purchase a textbook and continue to reuse it for multiple years, schools now must use online textbooks and programs which operate on a per year license basis, adding to the annual operating costs. Students now start needing Chromebooks in elementary school, a lot more expensive than pencils and papers.”

She continued: “This issue we’re facing is not as simple as the schools not being able to spend and plan within their bounds. It is a matter of the work of education changing beyond just inflation and more rapidly than other areas of municipal services. I urge the Finance Committee to recommend amendments to the Town Council budget guidelines increasing the percentage going to the schools to at least 4.5%, if not 5. The bump to 4.5% would increase the amount going to the schools by about $458,000 from the initial 3.5%. Is it enough? No. Will there still be heartbreaking cuts? Yes, but we can also supplement budgets in other ways, which I hope you will consider in your discussion of free cash.

“I was disappointed when no capital requests came [from the schools]. I don’t know why the schools did not submit any requests for those funds, but I hope they will in the future, I hope the Council can release the mindset that equal percentage increases is the fairest way to divide the budget. It is simply not nuanced enough. We need to make more informed decisions in the future. We need to stop going year by year, but start looking strategically at what information we need and when. And we need to start asking ourselves who is in the room at these critical decision points, getting to make the decisions that impact the different municipal sectors.

“The type of cuts proposed under the 3.5% increase will change educational delivery and services drastically, but we can strategically make a difference that stops the necessity of annual band-aid fixes and model how to cooperatively create municipal budgets that help both our current and future populations.”

Several educators and parents spoke in favor of increasing the money for the schools. Most noted that the proposed cuts to special education and specials (i.e. music, art, physical education) would especially harm the most vulnerable students.

Hanneke Pushes for Review of Regional Agreement for School Funding
Town Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke said she is “struggling with what to do about the regional assessment and our responsibility to the region versus our responsibility to our own taxpayers. The superintendent has been aiming for a four percent increase over the previous year, and there’s been a debate as to how to split that among the four towns [in the region].” She stated that the superintendent had asked to reduce Leverett and Pelham’s regional assessment by $220,000, and it would essentially amount to “having Amherst’s taxpayers reduce Pelham and Leverett’s property tax bills.” According to Hanneke, that $220,000 could go to the Amherst elementary schools instead. She also voiced concern that the increase in Amherst’s contribution to the region would not raise the total amount received by the schools, but would only shift more of the burden from the other three towns. “Then again,” she said, “if Leverett, Pelham, and Shutesbury are perfectly fine with the four percent increase year over year, and Amherst parents are not, should we be gifting this to the region and not necessarily pushing for a [new] regional agreement method?”

Finance Director Melissa Zawadzki replied, “We’re trying to do as much as we can to be supportive of the region and listen to what people are asking for, and that doesn’t take away from the responsibilities of the other towns. Just because Amherst is going to go to four percent, I think those discussions about the other communities going to six or seven percent should remain. If we pull back from what we’ve always done, then we are not supporting the schools, but I don’t think that there’s any advantage to going above and beyond what we’ve always done in order to help when they don’t actually get more.”  

Town Manager Paul Bockelman agreed with Zawadzki. He said, “We can control what we can control. If this is a net zero gain for the region, why do this? It really is a decision by the School Committee in terms of what budget they’re going to approve and the assessment method that they’re going to recommend.” 

Second Quarter Expenses and Revenue on Budget
Zawadzki reported that the second quarter report indicates that both revenue and expenses are running as expected. She said that the remaining ARPA funds, which needed to be spent by December 31, 2024 were used to pay health insurance expenses in advance because, she said, the town was not ready to sign a contract for the $2.8 million in repairs to the Bang’s Center approved at the last Town Council meeting. It now looks as if there is a surplus in the health insurance line of the budget, but most of the excess will be used for the Bangs Center.

Comptroller Holly Drake said that even though the town does not yet need to incur debt for the much-delayed Jones Library project, much of the money allocated for servicing its  debts has been used to pay down short-term borrowing debt, which will save interest expenses in the long run.

Free Cash Predictions for FY2025
Although Drake said she has no idea how much free cash will be available until autumn, after  the previous year’s expenditures and receipts have been certified, Zawadzki said she expected the total to be less than the $10.4 million that was available last year. 

Zawadzki’s presentation gave the definition of free cash: “Remaining, unrestricted funds from operations of the previous fiscal year including unexpended free cash from the previous year, actual receipts in excess of revenue estimates shown on the tax recapitulation sheet, and unspent amounts in budget line items. Unpaid property taxes and certain deficits reduce the amount that can be certified as free cash. The calculation of free cash is based on the balance sheet as of June 30, which is submitted by the community’s auditor, accountant, or comptroller. Important: free cash is not available for appropriation until certified by the Director of Accounts.”

In fall of 2024, there was $4.6 million from unspent free cash from the previous year, $1.8 million in unspent funds from departments (largely staff vacancies, especially in public safety), and $1.4 million in excess revenue from investment income, meals and hotel taxes, and permits and licenses. The prediction is that the unspent free cash from FY2025 will be $2.6 million, as opposed to last year’s $4.6 million.

Hanneke noted that some revenue, such as hotel/motel and meals tax receipts and revenue for licenses and permits, are above the budgeted amount and have been for several years. She asked whether the projected income is too conservative. But Zawadzki said she is less optimistic about future revenue levels with the changing national political scene. She said the permitting income depends mostly on large projects undertaken by the university or colleges, and those cannot be predicted. Also, investment income is especially high due to the amount of cash from the elementary school bond, capital reserves, and not yet spent money such as for the new pumper truck on order. Once those capital projects begin and the fire truck is received, the investment income will drop considerably. Overall, she said, local receipts contribute only 8 to 11% of the total budget.

Budget Projections for FY2026
Bockelman reported that the budget for the town services is projected to have a $500,000 shortfall, which he said has never been that large before. He did say that the projected 20% increase in health insurance premiums was reduced to 14.2% by shifting more costs back to the user through co-pays and deductibles. Representatives of all unions and retirees were present for the negotiations with the health insurance companies and agreed to the changes. The final figure is closer to the 13% increase in the preliminary budget.

To allow for the four percent across the board increase in budgets, the town increased projections for revenue from fees and investment income and reduced the exemptions and abatement costs from one percent to one-half percent.

Money contributed recently by Amherst College is considered a gift and is not figured in the general budget. Money received from grants is not in the general budget.

Council Oversight Urged for Jones Library Expansion Project

In public comment, Arlie Gould and Maria Kopicki urged the Finance Committee to take a more active role in the much-delayed proposed $46 million demolition and expansion of the Jones Library. Gould noted that the town charter gives the council authority to require the Town Manager to appear before it, at any time, to provide specific information on the conduct of any aspect of the business of the town. The charter also states that the Town Manager “shall be responsible to the Town Council for the proper operation of town affairs.” 

Kopicki pointed out that the Town Manager and president of the Library Board of Trustees requested a third extension from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners without consulting either the Jones Library Building Committee or the Town Council, and without reporting how much money had been raised by the capital campaign. She wondered if the bids from the general contractors submitted last fall would still hold with increases in tariffs, and noted that the section 106 review has still not been completed. She asked the Finance Committee, as the first step to fiscal responsibility, to demand answers.