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Date: 5/18/2021
GRANBY – The Granby School Committee discussed their current budget deficit for the FY22 school year, and how they would solve it at their most recent School Committee meeting.
The May 11 meeting was scheduled to discuss the school’s FY22 budget. The meeting began with a presentation from Adam Tarquini, who serves as the director of finance for the district. The budget, he said, was built around four elements of their strategic plan including to offer innovative and continuous learning experiences; to celebrate success and engage the community; to focus on the social, emotional and physical well-being of students; and to ensure the district had the proper resources to sustain the best possible learning environment.
Tarquini then went on to address the deficit that the district was facing, which amounted to $2,501,297. He said the most significant factors contributing to the deficit included “the decrease in the required local contribution,” “additional town allocation” and the ”town-in-kind contribution.” He said the district would “try to make that gap up with other sources of revenue.”
Member Stephanie Parent questioned whether the district had considered a transportation fee, which Tarquini said would be a school committee decision that they could discuss. He said the district should continue to have conversations about additional sources of revenue that would allow them to continue to bring in supplemental income, especially as the school choice income the district was receiving was going down.
He said the school was “operating at the bare minimum” and there were no new initiatives or asks included in the FY22 budget. He said the projected revenue offsets that would help bridge the funding gap, which included grants, circuit breaker, school choice and COVID-19 relief funding totalled to $1,773,662. However, he emphasized they were projections and they may decrease or increase over the next few months. This, he said, left the district with a projected deficit of $727,617.
When Parent asked whether families in school choice would be given a survey so they could finalize numbers, Tarquini said that was already in the process of happening. Interim Superintendent Carol Hepworth said of 88 school choice families, there are currently 14 that are unconfirmed and staff is working with them to secure placement.
“The names have been given to the admin assistants in the schools to call and either fill out the surveys online with them or walk them through getting online to fill it out. I believe we have currently 11 [new students],” she said. However, she said they were losing 11 seniors from the school choice program.
Tarquini then walked the committee through the reductions within the budget that would take place with the new budget. Proposed was eliminating a single administrative assistant, which would save the district $23,076; eliminating three teaching/instruction positions, which would save $168,278; and eliminating four paraprofessional positions, which would save $71,263. In total, the reductions would save the district $277,617. These eliminations, he said, would be made by retirements and staff already giving their notice. “So these aren’t actual cuts, we’ll call them reductions for now,” he said.
Hepworth said, “Every single one of these have notified us they’re not returning, so these are not layoffs.” Tarquini said while the reductions would impact the classroom the administration would work to ensure it was in the least impactful way possible. The cost of the reductions, he said, would bring the deficit down to $450,000, and they “would be going to the town for some financial help this year.”
School Committee Chair Jennifer Bartosz questioned what would happen should the town deny the funding. Tarquini said there was not yet a plan in place, but there were “some things we could put on that list,” but cuts to classroom positions could potentially be a discussion to reduce the budget deficit further.
He also went on to say that they didn’t know what the fall would look like in terms of the pandemic. He said while it appeared that they were heading in the right direction, things could change in a matter of months. However, should the school be allowed to open in person in the fall and more people were vaccinated, their need for contact tracing may decrease allowing for them to possibly eliminate a sub nurse position.
Tarquini also said he felt as though families in the community should be educated by the district to understand the budget and the needs of the district. He said this would help contribute to community support when the district needed to go before the town asking for funding.
Ultimatley, the town voted to approve the $8.8 million budget to be able to host a public forum at their next meeting on May 18. However, Tarquini and Bartosz emphasized that while the committee was approving the budget they still had work to do to close the deficit.