Regional School Committee Hears ABCs of Budgeting
Amherst School Superintendent Dr. Xi is greeted by Amherst Middle School staff on the first day of school. Photo: arps.org
Report on the Meeting of the Regional School Committee, August 27, 2024
The Regional School Committee (RSC) heard a presentation on school budgeting by Tracy Novick, Field Director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC). State Senator Jo Comerford and State Representative Mindy Domb joined the audience for the presentation.
Novick explained that the 1790 state constitution states that public education is the “duty of legislatures and magistrates.” The burden of public education fell largely on local governments until 1993, when the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court determined in McDuffy v Secretary of State Executive Office of Education that the state has “a duty to provide an education for all its children, rich and poor, in every city and town of the Commonwealth.” This decision led to the creation of Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 70, Section 1 that states, “It is the intention of the general court to assure fair and adequate minimum per student funding.”
To that aim, the state developed a shared responsibility for education, called the foundation budget. The formula for the foundation budget is based on a combination of local tax revenue, residents’ income, and student enrollment. Special Education is capped at 4%, as is the inflation rate. The more a municipality can afford to pay, the less the state contributes. A further attempt to create parity in local budgets came with the passage of the Student Opportunity Act (SOA) in 2019. The SOA is administered by the Commissioner of Education and aims to decrease the disparity in education of subgroups of the population. It is now in the fourth year of its six-year implementation. The 2022 Fair Share amendment, which assessed an additional 4% tax on incomes over $1,000,000 for education and transportation, has added an extra $74 per pupil and funded free lunch for all students.
To balance out the loss of funds for declining enrollment, the state contributes “Hold Harmless” funds. As a result of these calculations, the Amherst Regional district received 34% more than its calculated foundation budget. However, Novick said that most districts in the state are facing funding shortages with the loss of the ESSER funds awarded for COVID relief, since many of the stresses on the system remain after the pandemic. She stated that Special Education is still vastly underfunded and most districts have increasing capital and transportation costs. These issues need to be taken up at the state and federal level.
Superintendent Plans Audit of the Budget Process
Superintendent E. Xiomara Herman has hired an outside firm to audit the district’s business office and finance office. She wants to assure that the budget aligns with the goals of the district and that any person hired will be someone who is student-facing and will help further those goals.
School Committee Calls for Four Towns Meeting in September to Discuss FY2026 Budget
Both the Amherst Town Council and the Pelham Select Board sent letters to the Regional School Committee (RSC) informing it that the increase in the FY2026 budget would be limited to 2.5%. Herman pointed out that this is actually a decrease, since the basis for the budget is not the FY2025 budget, but 2% less. (The towns reluctantly awarded a 6% increase to the schools to avoid many lay-offs of staff with the new superintendent starting.) She agreed that it was important to begin the discussion of the budget early in the year. She added that every week the district receives one or two new families who have children who need special education, and there is no extra funding for special education above the 4% provided by the state. Amherst School Committee (SC) member Deb Leonard pointed out that last year was the first year that the special education budget exceeded the general budget.
Shutesbury representative Anna Heard felt the proposed 2.5% increase was unrealistic, and she would like to get that across to the towns at the beginning of the budget process. Amherst SC member Bridget Hynes said she wants a clear communication strategy so that the misconceptions aired in last year’s budget discussions, such as that enrollment was declining but there was no reduction in staff, can be avoided.
Amherst representative Sarah Marshall said she doesn’t want the budget decisions to go down to the wire and force last-minute cuts to be made. Leonard noted that the district is constrained by mandated services it must provide and that it is important to communicate these often-costly requirements to the community.
Jennifer Shiao (Amherst) and Heard said they were unclear about what programs had been cut this year. Heard asked if middle school world languages had been reduced to every other day, as proposed by the interim superintendent. Herman said she was not sure, but will find out for the next meeting. She pointed out that some programs that were “cut” were actually shifted to a different position. For instance, the restorative justice program is now a responsibility of the dean’s office (however, the restorative justice coordinator position was eliminated).
RSC Chair Sarabess Kenney (Pelham) will set up a September meeting of the four towns in the district.
Herman Presents a Draft of Her Goals for the Year
Saying she wanted her goals for the school year finalized as soon as possible, so she could begin working on them, she used the criteria compiled last year by McPherson Jacobson recruitment company from community input for the superintendent search to develop a draft of possible goals. She said she hopes the goals will be finalized by the end of September.
The draft document has four main goals, with several subgoals for each. The four main goals are:
- Develop and present a district improvement plan by June 2025
- Enhance district efficiency, data management, and equity by June 2025
- Heal and stabilize the district while rebuilding trust through community engagement
- Establish a strong professional culture aligned with core values and equity
Heard said she liked the proposal, but thought it seemed like too much to accomplish in a year, but Herman said that she would not be working on these goals alone, but that the administrative staff will work as a team. In the first year, she wants the administration to be clear on the priorities of the district, so they can work with the teachers in the next year. She has asked each school principal to submit a list of who is responsible for each task in their school. Means for evaluating each goal is also included in the document.
Shiao suggested that Herman could eliminate the weekly podcast as part of her goal. However, Herman said that she did an hour-long radio program every week when she was in the Virgin Islands, but Amherst staff had persuaded her to cut it down to 30 minutes. Hynes was glad to see how equity was woven through most of the goals.
Beginning of the School Year A Success
Herman recounted last week’s activities in a presentation. She said that the theme for this year is “Together We Grow, Together We Shine.” A convocation for staff was held at the Mullins Center on August 23, with Dr. Robert Peterson as a keynote speaker and a deejay to keep things lively. She said that UMass donated the space and noted that Amherst College has also been generous with time and space.
Herman went to all five schools for the first day of school and reported that aside from a few missteps with the school buses, all went smoothly. She enjoyed speaking with many of the students at each school.
She wants to be sure that the district is matching the staff to the needs of the students, and will be considering the question, “What do we need to run the region?” To answer this, she will be rolling out a community survey soon. She also noted that last year ended with over unsettled 200 bullying reports. She has launched a new bullying reporting system, which is aimed to provide more transparent and timely resolution.
Public Comment
Staff members Georgia Malcolm, Mika Magee, and Irene LaRoche thanked the RSC for hiring Herman and stated that they were excited to work with her.
Vincent O’Connor wanted to know why the RSC had not received the information on state aid for the FY2025 budget as soon as it was available.
Meeting Ends with Executive Session
The RSC meeting adjourned into executive session at 9:20 p.m. The topic was not stated. They did not return to the public meeting.
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While surprising to learn the new superintendent didn’t answer the question about the ARMS world language program, the answer is: yes, it has been reduced (below) half-time, with students attending language class for only 3 days of their 7-day rotating schedule. At the same time, several ARMS world language teachers language teachers are now either unemployed or have had their 40% part-time status reduced to 20%, or have been redeployed to teach other classes at ARHS.
Decades ago, world language study began in the Amherst elementary schools. Whether or not one agrees that’s the best time to start learning another language, the relative success of PVCICS — a language immersion charter school that was “born” when an earlier ARPS superintendent and school committee declined petitions from parents to begin such an immersion program within ARPS — suggests that the failure to respond favorably to that petition was a serious mistake.