The Finance Committee expressed concern that Mount Greylock Regional School District was asking for enough money for programming.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School District continues to make cuts to its proposed fiscal 2016 budget, but cutting much deeper will lead to a school that is unrecognizable to students returning next September.

 

That was the message the district's School Committee chairwoman and administration brought to the Williamstown Finance Committee on Wednesday night.

 

The school is currently asking for an assessment that is nearly two percentage points higher than the funding increase Williamstown is offering to the rest of its town departments and 2.5 percent higher than the increase demanded by officials in the district's other member town, Lanesborough.

 

This despite making all possible efforts to trim the school's budget — right up until Wednesday morning as the school headed to its annual review before the town's Finance Committee.

 

"The School Committee hasn't seen this assessment sheet," School Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Green told the Fin Comm. "They saw it by email today, but we haven't discussed it.

 

"The administration is working very hard to bring the numbers down."

 

At its most recent meeting, the School Committee approved a preliminary budget that was 2.61 percent higher than FY15. On Wednesday, school officials laid out a budget that is .85 percent higher than the current year's. The total spending plan is $10.5 million.

 

Because the district spent down its reserve fund the past few years to lower the towns' assessments, as requested by Lanesborough officials, it has no reserves to apply to this year's budget. That is why the percentage increases proposed for the towns in FY16 are higher than the percentage rise in the district's budget.

 

From Williamstown, the budget as presented seeks 4.45 percent more money. In dollar terms, the district is currently asking $210,363 more than last year. That is a total bill of $4.9 million that the district projects would add 22 cents per $1,000 of property value to a Williamstown tax bill.

 

If the budget is approved as submitted, Lanesborough would be assessed $2.7 million, which is $91,487 more than last year — an increase of 3.49 percent that would add 23 cents per thousand dollars.

 

Lanesborough officials have told Mount Greylock it must keep its assessment increase to 1 percent or the town would be forced into Proposition 2 1/2 override vote at June's annual town meeting.

 

No such override would be necessary in Williamstown, where the town has about $800,000 in unused levy capacity. At its Feb. 27 meeting, the Fin Comm discussed how the unused capacity was being "banked" for the prospect of bonds on large capital projects like a new police station or renovated or rebuilt Mount Greylock.

 

Even though an increase to the regional school district's operating budget this year would require higher taxes in Williamstown, the higher assessment did not draw much criticism from the town's Finance Committee on Wednesday.

 

Instead, the panel seemed more interested in making sure that Mount Greylock was seeking enough money to maintain programming at the junior-senior high school.

 

"Is [the budget cutting] so detrimental we should advocate for something different, or is this reasonable?" Fin Comm member Daniel Gendron asked. "Are we educating our people the way we should be?

 

"Perhaps it's better, instead of coming in with this pared down thing to come in with what you need."

 

"We did come in last year with what we felt we needed, and were told [in Lanesborough] in no uncertain terms we needed to cut drastically," Greene said. "We're anticipating the need to cut drastically to meet a very specific request to come in at a 1 percent increase for Lanesborough.

 

"We're doing this because we need a budget that will pass in both towns. We have a building project we're working on. One of the reasons we had that large transfer from Excess and Deficiency [account] last year was we could not afford a fight last year."

 

Greene referred to the $200,000 the School Committee applied from E&D (the school's reserve fund) in FY15 to take political pressure off the budget and ease the path for a vote on the district's Massachusetts School Building Authority-mandated feasibility study. That study was passed overwhelmingly in both Williamstown and Lanesborough.

 

The lack of E&D funds this year is the main reason town assessment hikes are higher than the .85 percent increase in the bottom line budget. The budget itself, while slightly higher than FY15's, includes a number of cuts that will be noticeable at the school next year.

 

That is because the school has a number of rising "fixed costs" over which the School Committee has no control. Its multiyear transportation contract has negotiated increases. The same goes for its contracts with union employees. And then there is the 15 percent rise in health insurance that is hitting municipal entities throughout the county for FY16.

 

In order to keep the budget increase down to .85 percent, the School Committee has agreed to a number of budget cuts, including: the elimination of five teaching positions (two full-time, three part-time), the non-replacement of two other teaching positions cut from the FY15 budget with the hopes of replacing them, a reduction in elective classes, the elimination of the school's digital media specialist position, the elimination of both "late" buses (4:15 and 5:15), the elimination of cooperative sports teams for swimming (with St. Joseph) and hockey (with Wahconah) and the movement of all professional development to the line item covered by the Williams College Fund.

 

Mount Greylock Interim Superintendent Gordon Noseworthy addresses the Williamstown Finance Committee.

The Williams College Fund, generated largely by the donation of a single family, is set to run out at the end of FY16. In addition to that Band-Aid on the budget, the college has offered a one-time grant of $150,000 to help the district pay off the bond on the 2009 locker room/boiler replacement project.

 

Mount Greylock's principal said the cuts already in the budget are difficult but manageable.

 

"With regard to core classes, we're looking to run all the core classes, but we have done some switching [of teachers]," she said. "There has been some creative reassignment.

 

"But we anticipate students returning next year will recognize Mount Greylock. Some of the classes may be larger.

 

"The [reassignments] are creatively done, considering the teachers' experience, their broader experience. We're definitely going to need to do some professional development over the summer with the switches, but fortunately we have the Williams College Fund for professional development for one more year."

 

The cuts are coming at the same time that Mount Greylock is looking at 23 percent more students next year because of a small graduating class and a large incoming seventh-grade class. The school is expecting 577 students for the 2015-16 school year, and based on current enrollments at Lanesborough and Williamstown Elementary Schools, the district expects that number to stabilize.

 

At the same time, Mount Greylock is looking at a lower state aid package, according to figures released Wednesday in the governor's proposed budget.

 

Chapter 70 aid would remain essentially flat, going from $1.69 million to $1.70 million (up .57 percent). Regional transportation aid would fall from (down 3.3 percent). Charter tuition reimbursements would fall from $73,025 to $20,662 (down 72 percent). School choice tuition would remain essentially unchanged — rising a little based on an increased number of students attending under the program.

 

Total state aid — if Gov. Charlie Baker's budget goes through — would drop from $2,351,152 in FY15 to $2,320,314, a decrease of 1.3 percent.

 

State aid made up about 23 percent of Mount Greylock's $10.4 million FY15 operating budget.