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Date: 2/1/2023
SOUTHWICK — The Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School Committee learned on Jan. 24 that it may have to make up a “half a million dollar gap” between expected revenues and expenditures in the fiscal year 2024 budget.
Finance and Operations Manager Clayton Connor, in his first budget cycle with the school district, told the committee that because of a decline in revenue and rising expenses, the district will need to make up the difference largely through cuts to other parts of the budget.
“We figure there it will be a half-mil gap between revenues and expenditures we have to address,” said Connor. “We will look for savings wherever we can, specifically in areas where a reduction in force or full-time equivalence is a possibility.”
Connor said that three staffing positions have already been removed from the budget, and further cuts will be considered in places where he said there will not be a decline in the quality of education or programming.
“We continue to support the superintendent’s initiatives and we don’t increase class sizes. We try to find savings in every area that we can without reducing programming,” said Connor.
Superintendent Jennifer Willard said that there has been an increase in costs associated with special education and out-of-district vocational tuition, as well as increases in insurance costs, pension liabilities and salaries. Those things, she said, are largely out of the control of district administrators.
“Their increases are what they are,” said Willard.
One area where costs do not seem to have risen as much as school officials had originally feared was transportation, which Connor said is only projected to increase by 4.5 percent from the current budget.