Williamstown Finance Committee Chairwoman K. Elaine Neely and committee member Michael Sussman participate in Wednesday's meeting.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Finance Committee finished the bulk of its review of the town budget on Wednesday night, receiving a little good news from two of the town's cost centers in the process.

 

The committee examined the budgets of Williamstown Elementary School and the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District as planned. It also received a report from Chairwoman K. Elaine Neely, who sits on the board of commissioners of the Hoosac Water Quality District.

 

Neely told her colleagues that the district's assessment to Williamstown will be more than $38,000 below the figure the town anticipated when Town Manager Peter Fohlin proposed the municipal budget earlier this winter.

 

At that time, Fohlin used a "placeholder" figure while awaiting information from the water district. Neely said Wednesday that the district had completed its calculations for fiscal 2016, and the allocation split between North Adams and Williamstown has changed, shifting more of the cost to the city.

 

Another placeholder in the original budget book was the projected expense for Northern Berkshire Vocational or McCann Tech.

 

The town's preliminary budget had that line item at $299,925, in line with the 2.5 percent increase offered town departments.

 

Instead, McCann Tech Superintendent James Brosnan on Wednesday presented a budget that assesses the town $206,751.

 

Once again, cost shifting was the difference.

 

This time, the number of Williamstown residents attending the North Adams vocational-technical school went from 19 to 13.

 

That enrollment change, coupled with the fact that McCann Tech's total operating budget is going up by less than 1 percent, meant that the town's assessment went down by nearly $86,000, or 29 percent, from this year.

 

Williamstown is one of four member towns in the McCann district to see a drop in enrollment from 2014 to 2015. Lanesborough, Florida and Savoy also saw modest declines.

 

Overall, McCann's population dropped from 539 to 526 from last year to this year, though the student population from the nine member towns went up slightly, from 472 to 475.

 

Based on Williamstown's enrollment, it pays 2.7 percent of the school's $7.4 million budget.

 

As for Williamstown Elementary School, the budget remained unchanged from that presented at the School Committee's public hearing last week.

 

Tri-District Business Manager Lynn Bassett and interim Superintendent Gordon Noseworthy walked the Fin Comm through the school's $6.5 million budget. Most of that figure — $5.8 million — will go to the town's voters at the annual town meeting in May.

 

The school's assessment to the town is 2.5 percent higher than last year's, keeping it in line with the other town cost centers.

 

The Finance Committee may meet again on March 25 to hear the budget request from Williamstown Youth Center, which is budgeted to receive $72,030, and to reconsider the Mount Greylock Regional School budget.

 

The Mount Greylock School Committee presented a spending plan to the FinComm earlier this month, but on Tuesday, the School Committee decided to meet on March 23 to consider putting money back into its FY16 spending plan.