Village Ambulance, Williams Partner on Student Services

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Village Ambulance Service has signed an agreement to provide Williams College with on-call transportation for its students to and from non-emergency medical appointments during the school term.

Williams will fund the new operation, including the acquisition of two new fully equipped, wheelchair-capable vans and the hiring of drivers.

"The closure earlier this year of North Adams Regional Hospital brought into sharp relief a growing challenge that the college had been faced with for some time – how best to respond to an accelerating need to provide non-emergent, health-care-related transportation for students," said Stephen Klass, Williams vice president for campus life.

"We'd long envisioned Village Ambulance as a primary resource for this creative type of service and we're thrilled to have co-designed this new academic-year program for our students," he continued. "We're equally excited to see what might be developed for broader community application from this private pilot program."

The new agreement is in addition to the college's long-standing support of the ambulance service for its emergency services to Williams students.



"It's been exciting for VAS to work with the college on developing this innovative collaboration," said VAS board President Dr. Erwin Stuebner.

"As the plans for this service evolved it became clear that it would not only benefit Williams but that, because of the significant contribution the college is providing financially and with its confidence in our service, it will make VAS an even stronger organization."

Stuebner said he shares the college's hope the pilot progam will lead to similar services to the entire community in the future.

Village Ambulance Service is a locally managed, not-for-profit organization that provides emergency (911) call response to the greater Williamstown area, and a wide range of medical transportation services from advanced life support to shuttle services.


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Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
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