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Date: 5/2/2023
WEST SPRINGFIELD — School Committee members have reluctantly agreed to set aside ambitious plans to reconfigure the town’s elementary schools using their remaining federal ESSER funds.
At a workshop meeting April 25, the board voted to allocate portions of West Springfield’s share of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief money to several smaller projects and to prevent staffing cuts in the proposed fiscal year 2024 budget. Mayor William Reichelt told School Committee members that the approximately $7 million still unspent in ESSER won’t be enough to build the proposed additions to Fausey, Memorial and Tatham schools.
Instead, a little over $1 million of that money will be spent on immediate budget needs. In recent years, ESSER had funded salaries of several educators in pandemic-related roles such as subject specialists to combat learning loss, and adjustment counselors. The School Committee budget passed on April 4 envisioned shifting all of that spending into the annual budget, in anticipation of ESSER expiring after next year. Reichelt said he is modifying the budget to fund only half of these salaries, and using ESSER to fill the gap, in order to allocate funds in the town budget to other departments.
School Committee member Nancy Farrell protested the change, but Reichelt said he has to look at the whole town government’s needs.
“I’m cutting positions and laying people off on the town side,” Reichelt said. “Health care [costs] went up 12%, and the schools are the biggest employer. I’m holding the line and keeping the tax increase to 3.5%. It went up 6% last year, and I don’t want to do that again.”
Instead of elementary school renovation plans, the School Committee agreed to spend ESSER funds on plans to expand West Springfield Middle School to reduce overcrowding. Two options will be produced: a larger wing, estimated to cost about $25 million, which would give the school the amount of space educators feel they need but which Reichelt said would depend upon state aid for construction; or a smaller wing, costing about $5 million, which Reichelt said the town could afford to build on its own.
School officials continue to see the renovation or replacement of their aging elementary schools — including Mittineague School and John Ashley Kindergarten, which were likely to be closed in the plan discussed in March — as a long-term goal. The schools are setting up a volunteer committee to discuss school building needs and come up with a plan.
One small-scale renovation — moving the Fausey School office closer to the front door, and improving the security of the entrance — will proceed using ESSER funds, Reichelt said.
School Committee members on April 25 also approved using $450,000 in ESSER funds to replace all the smartboards in the schools with new equipment, similar to the boards installed at Coburn School when it opened last year.
The board also approved using $200,000 from School Choice funds, tuition payments for out-of-town students who attend West Springfield schools, to meet the higher-than-expected cost of replacing the artificial turf and running track surface at Clark Field. The town and schools had set aside $1 million for project, which was thought to be more than sufficient, but bids came in $250,000 higher than predicted.
Reichelt said the current field was installed in 2012 and has already lasted two years longer than its advertised lifetime, and that safety inspectors advised the town this year that it should be replaced to avoid concussion risks. The work will take 4-6 weeks over the summer.