Williamstown Elementary Committee Starts Budget Discussion
 Interim Superintendent Gordon Noseworthy laughs at his first meeting with the Williamstown School Committee. |
District Business Manager Lynn Bassett told the committee that she is awaiting guidance from Town Hall about how much money the school will have to work with, but she provided some preliminary insights.
For example, she told the committee the district is looking at a 10 percent increase in its health insurance rate and a 2.5 percent increase on its previously negotiated bus contract.
On the other hand, the school is expecting to realize heating savings in the neighborhood of $12,000 — enough to roughly offset the increased cost for its electricity, Bassett said.
The school’s assessment from the Berkshire County Retirement system, which covers non-teachers, is going to go up, but Bassett has not yet heard by how much. At Mount Greylock Regional School, of which she is also business manager, the assessment went up by about $32,000, Bassett said.
Beyond that, there are too many variables at the state and local level to give the committee a clearer picture, she said.
"There are a couple of grants, and [Director of Pupil Personnel Services] Kim [Grady] will have to update us more," Bassett said. "Is the [Special Education] grant still going to be able to fund four para[professional]s, as it did this year? Is Title I going to fund half a teacher as it did this year?"
Bassett will return to the committee's February meeting with a first draft of the budget, which will be vetted by the town's Finance Committee and be the subject of a special hearing before the May annual town meeting, when voters will have the final say.
Wednesday's meeting was the first attended by the district's new interim superintendent, Gordon Noseworthy.
The committee welcomed him to Williamstown Elementary and discussed some of the priorities it would like him to tackle between now and the end of the school year.
The biggest are the budget, collective bargaining negotiations, a regularly scheduled Coordinated Program Review that Grady is undertaking and the search for a permanent successor to retired Superintendent Rose Ellis.
Committee Chairwoman Valerie Hall told the panel that the Administrative Review Subcommittee — a creature of the Williamstown-Lanesborough Tri-District — has talked with a consultant about the search process and has a timeline that aims to do interviews in April.
Noseworthy took on one official role at Wednesday's meeting: filling in for Principal Joelle Brookner to make the annual announcement of the school's Renzi Award winners.
The Renzi Award, named for the late teacher, principal and superintendent Helen Renzi, recognizes students who exemplify the qualities of a good citizen. The award winners — sixth-graders — assist in adding books to the school library's Helen Renzi collection.
This year's Renzi Award winners are Hazel Scullen, Gina Wang, Charles McWeeny and Kyle Trottier.
Brookner was under the weather and unable to attend the meeting.
In other business on Wednesday, the committee approved a proposal to allow Mount Greylock to pay to use the special education van that it leases. The junior-senior high school will pay the elementary school a rate of $70 per day for use of the van — well less than half of what it would pay to an outside vendor, Grady told the committee.
Tags: fiscal 2016, WES,
