With that money, they hope to improve professional development to combat failing mathematics scores, add staffing and textbooks and install a new wireless system. The school budget adds $15,000 to support fine and performing arts, which had not been funded in the past, and is adding a pre-culinary program.

 

Meanwhile, the budget calls for only modest increases to the town assessments.

 

"Basically, we're experiencing a slow recovery from a four-year economic downturn," Superintendent of Schools Rose Ellis said at a budget hearing at the Elementary School on  Monday. "This is a little ray of hope."

 

Lanesborough's assessment will increase by .47 percent — from $2,507,299 to $2,519,265 — and Williamstown's will increase by .21 percent, from $4,600,521 to $4,610,042.

 

The school district saw a slight increase in revenues of about $62,000 and saved on snow removal, consolidation of some additional administration, electricity costs and the restructuring of speech and health teaching positions.

One of the largest savings comes from the the Berkshire Health Group's decrease in premiums with a one-month premium holiday. That is expected to save the district about $85,000 that it will use to install a new wireless system.

 

Additionally, the School Committee is expected to adopt new legislation that allows the district to change health insurance benefits that will increase deductibles and decrease its premiums.

 

"We are calculating a savings of $134,000 as a result of this legislation in the first year," Finance Director David Donoghue of The Management Solution said.

 

While there are many areas in which the school has saved, expenses are also expected to increase by 1 percent, or $117,000. Those expenses include contractual salary increases, a new collective bargaining agreement that is expected to be negotiated soon, utilities, transportation and an extra effort to pay down the debt from the locker room project. The school also saw a decrease in grant money.

 

This year's spending is expected to come short of the budgeted amount by about $400,000, which will be used to offset next year's budget increases. The school is expected to use about $500,000 of reserve funds toward the budget, which will keep the reserve balance at about $250,000.

 

Overall, the budget is increasing by $117,339 for a grand total of $10,265,562.

 

"This budget is a miracle," School Committee member David Langston said. "I think both Williamstown and Lanesborough should be counting their lucky stars that we came in with this financial forecast."

 

While school officials were delighted with the budget, Lanesborough officials were skeptical. Selectman William Prendergast feared that the $134,000 savings in health care was presumptuous because it has not yet been negotiated nor been tried before.

 

"You may have that. You may not have anything," he said.

 

Donoghue agreed that it is a "moving target" but said the projections are as accurate as it can be at this point. But even then, a few residents said the savings should go back to the town rather than be invested in the school.

 

Residents and officials also took the time to reiterate that even increasing the assessment about $12,000 is a hit on town finances. Williams Stevens, Finance Committee member, said that, each year, health insurance and vocational education eat up the town's 2 1/2 percent levy increase. Anything above last year's total means cutting somewhere else in the budget, he said.

 

"As soon as we start out of the gate, we're behind the eight ball," Stevens said. "We start out at zero. It makes it difficult."

 

School officials said they were well aware of Lanesborough's financial position when they built the budget. Williamstown Town Manager Peter Fohlin was prepared to give the school a 2 percent increase this year but since that would force Lanesborough's assessment to rise as well, school officials decided not to accept it, School Committee member Heather Williams said.
 

She added that last year, the school had to cut $400,000 from its operating budget. These investments, she said, are only the school district trying to get back to where it was in previous years.

 

"We're getting some of what we got two years ago but we're not back to where we were," Williams said. 

 

For town officials, supporting the budget will ultimately come down to how other parts of the town's finances are looking. Officials said it would have been nicer if the school could demonstrate the good things that are happening to help illustrate how taxpayer money is being spent instead of just offering figures. School officials said they are working on ways to demonstrate that.