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Date: 3/31/2021
HATFIELD – Hatfield Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Martin McEvoy unveiled to the School Committee the district’s proposed $6.1 million fiscal year 2022 (FY22) budget at its March 25 meeting.
McEvoy explained to the committee that the budget represented a 3.45 percent increase over FY21.
The proposal includes $1.4 million in offsets from various revolving funds, Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) II and Circuit Breaker funding, school choice revenue, and other sources, representing 22 percent of the total budget figure.
After these offsets, the local appropriation of $4.8 million, a 3.25 percent or $151,000 increase over the prior fiscal year. Chapter 70 funding from the state is estimated at $846,286, reducing that local appropriation to $3.9 million.
McEvoy noted the budget was developed on a set of assumptions that school would return to full in-person learning in the fall, enrollment would remain stable or increase, all instructional staff would be retained, the self-contained program at Hatfield Elementary School would take place and the Pre-K program and food service would be financially viable, junior varsity and varsity sports would be retained, transportation costs would remain stable.
The budget also assumes the Student Opportunity Act would be fully funded and American Rescue Plan ESSER funding would cover COVID-19-related costs as well as learning enrichment opportunities and social and emotional learning programming.
“The American Rescue Plan, the details are still not fully known, but I am very confident that the fund will cover COVID-related costs and beyond,”?McEvoy said.
The district also anticipates receiving ESSER III funding that McEvoy theorized would be “substantially more” than the $95,000 in ESSER?II funding already received.
“The ESSER?III allowed us to make this budget a lot less painful and so did ESSER II,”?he said. “It’s not sustainable long-term, but for now it will help us at least maintaining and building on what we need, especially next year. Kids are going to come back with various levels of need and we want to be ready to address that. If we had to do that with just our appropriated budget with some offsets, it would be a lot more painful to make that happen and it wouldn’t benefit the kids because I think the last thing we want is larger class sizes, and that’s why I?think we have to maintain all instructional staff and all programming. Kids have already lost so much; we don’t want them to come back to a school that has been gutted.”
Addressing enrollment, McEvoy noted there was a reduction from 431 students to 399 when comparing FY20 to FY21, most of which, he said, was COVID-19-related.
“That’s a statewide phenomenon. They believe it is related to COVID,”?he said. “In our case, nearly 20 students were in Pre-K or K that did not enroll in school. So, right there, that explained a lot of it. We think with the COVID, a lot of parents were simply not enrolling their children in school.”
The school budget request will be reviewed by the Finance Committee and Board of Selectmen, who may make recommendations that would require an adjustment to the budget. After any possible adjustments are made, the School Committee would host a budget hearing in late April or early May and the committee would follow with a vote to support the budget. Residents would then vote on the budget on May 11, per the town’s calendar.