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Date: 5/2/2022
BELCHERTOWN – With the May 9 Town Meeting fast approaching, the Belchertown School Committee hosted a hearing for the fiscal year 2023 (FY23) budget and discussed a regionalization letter from Granby Public Schools across two meetings on April 26.
While the discussion about the FY23 budget has been ongoing for several months, Superintendent Brian Cameron and Interim Business Manager Mark Chapulis further discussed details around school choice and Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds. The total proposed budget for FY23 is $31,134,612, which is a 1.05 percent increase from the FY22 budget.
“School choice is the biggest non-general fund revenue we receive, $400,000 is allocated to maintenance, technology gets $110,000, we also have $449,000 attributed to an administrator, tech positions, the public safety and a couple teaching positions,” Chapulis said.
He added that the plan for this year was to bring school choice spending back in line with previous fiscal years after using less funding in FY21.
“The general spending plan has been to try to spend down school choice so that we are basically covering what is needed. Fiscal year [20]21 was an aberration because we had so much money coming into the district coming through the revolvings and we also had some credits from transportation, so we had a lot of money remaining in the general fund and did not apply nearly as much school choice revenue,” Chapulis said. “In FY23 we are looking to use those funds for some one-time fixes and purchases to bring us back in line with our school choice expenditures.”
One detail not yet finalized was the free lunch program in the district.
“As of now there is no free lunch for all students next year. I know Massachusetts is working on possibly having it for the whole state, we have not heard that but if we don’t have that then we can reduce our workers, but we don’t know what is going to happen,” Cameron said.
While there was a position for a visual arts technology teacher in the initial request, Cameron said the district would be able to get by without the position through at least the next school year.
During the presentation, Cameron once again highlighted the positions that would be funded out of ESSER funds including two, one-year paraprofessional positions, $15,000 in textbook expenses, an assistant principal for Jabish Brook Middle School, contracted mental health workers, contracted nursing staff, a food prep and recovery worker and IT staff, a special education teacher and a floater custodian; these positions totaled $550,000.
Committee member Michael Knapp said he was concerned about a funding cliff when the ESSER funds run out.
“If I look at the budget we are proposing tonight, it looks like there is about a $600,000 funding cliff that we might be staring at next year. Some of those positions seem like they’re quite possibly one-year needs, but some of those positions seem like they are going to be ongoing needs,” he said.
Cameron agreed that the funding cliff was coming.
“We hope possibly there’s more aid coming down from the state, but we know that is not all reality. We are going to really have to assess our needs for next year and our current needs just in case we have to make that $600,000 cliff fall,” he said.
He also highlighted the fact that the district is getting less funding each year to be able to maintain a level service budget.
“Over the years we have been chipping away at our budget for many years. Last year it was a 1.65 percent level service, this year we are only getting a .95 percent. My other concern is I don’t like having operational expenses in school choice, we have a number of those positions,” Cameron said. “I don’t have a clear answer because I think it’s going to involve a really poor decision or we could get some additional aid to help that cliff fall, next year we really have to audit our own systems in place.”
Committee Chair Heidi Gutekenst said it was a matter of if, not when the district would face the funding cliff.
“Wading into it, I feel like we could have a big cliff fall this year or next year, that’s what it came down to,” she said.
Following the hearing, the committee then discussed a letter it received from Granby Public Schools about creating a regionalized school for grades 7 through 12. Cameron mentioned that Belchertown previously investigated regionalization with Ware before declining that proposal. The committee also agreed to decline Granby’s offer and Gutekenst summed up the committee’s thoughts, specifically as it related to the Jabish Brook Middle School feasibility study.
“I just feel like at this time it will hurt our MSBA [Massachusetts School Building Authority] application, not even if we committed to it, if we were just entertaining it,” she said.
The Belchertown School Committee next met on May 3 to vote to approve the budget.