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Date: 5/24/2022
EASTHAMPTON – The Easthampton School Committee approved an operating budget of $18.5 million for fiscal year 2023 (FY23), a 7.91 percent increase from the last year.
The budget passed through a 6-0-1 vote with Mayor Nicole LaChapelle and will now be sent to the mayor’s office as well as to the City Council for a final approval from the city.
The reason behind the large increase from last year’s budget to this one is mainly based on increases in tuition and transportation costs. Of the $1.4 million difference from the last two fiscal years, nearly $1 million has fallen on these two costs – $500,525 for tuition increases and $493,095 for transportation.
Dayle Dorian, director of business for the Easthampton Public Schools, clarified during the public hearing – in which no members of the public commented – the reasons behind the increase in tuition.
Dorian explained that one side of the tuition was due to special education tuition and increases there could be tied to new students in the district who came without a district replacement for their needs, new additions to special education or from special education students who are in state custody who have had costs change in their placement.
She added the other side of the tuition increases were due to vocational tuitions for students attending either trade school options for students in Easthampton.
Transportation costs increased with the consolidation of schools in Easthampton, thus making it so more students need the services of buses to get to school. Superintendent Alison LeClair called the increases in transportation “fixed costs and intended” due to consolidation and the new normal for students in Easthampton.
The remaining costs from the $1.4 in difference of budgets will go toward utilities.
Marin Goldstein, chair of the School Committee’s Finance Subcommittee, said the subcommittee recommended the passing of the budget and credited the finance team for their work on this year’s budget as a whole. Goldstein said the finance team dug deep in certain areas to make sure that what was being put forward in the budget was aligned with what the school’s values and goals were.
Because of the consolidation of schools, some reductions of note in the new fiscal year will be the loss of one school administrator, three elementary classroom teachers and the loss of 9.2 paraeducators in exchange for new professional staff positions.
New positions to be added in the first full year with the new Easthampton school layout will be a new middle school librarian, one full day pre-K teacher that will allow for Easthampton to reintroduce the school service for young children, and one new special education teacher.
These new positions were created through the shifted elementary paraeducator funding. Through different sources of grant funding, other notable positions the schools will be adding are an elementary school librarian, a new STEM teacher, a social emotional coordinator, and a high school adjustment counselor.
Federal grants of $847,264, the ESSR III grant of $1.6 million, $382,006 from the circuit breaker account and an additional $1 million from other revolving funds in the city have been added to the operating budget make the total district budget $22.3 million for FY23.