The School Committee held an emergency meeting Tuesday night to discuss the next steps.

CHESHIRE, Mass. — The School Committee is essentially starting over again after voters rejected an override to fund the school budget.

 

The Adams-Cheshire Regional School Committee held an emergency subcommittee meeting Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the vote, to discuss the next steps.

 

The vote shorted the district's budget by $350,000 and now school officials will be asking the state for a 1/12 budget to operate on monthly until the district can come to terms on a budget.

 

"Clearly, we need to get to the commissioner to get a 1/12 budget," School Committee member Darlene Rodowicz said.

 

The School Committee has now asked Superintendent Kristen Gordon to meet with her cabinet and suggest areas to cut the budget. The district has 30 days to either revise the budget or submit the same one again in hopes for a passing vote the second time around. There is also the opportunity to extend that by 15 additional days.

 

"I will absolutely go back to the cabinet with urgency and get some ideas," Gordon said. "But I don't know where, after $220,000 in cuts and not replacing retirees, to cut."

 

The $19.1 million budget wasn't providing level services, Gordon said, and had already cost a dozen or so jobs. That proposal raised Cheshire's assessment to $90,000 over the town's levy limit and town officials called for a Proposition 2 1/2 override vote.

 

Because of the district agreement, $260,000 would need to be subsequently pulled from the Adams assessment — thus requiring $350,000 more in cuts to be under Cheshire's levy limit.

 

The spending plan was nearly $1 million more than this year and was mostly driven by a 16 percent increase in health insurance, 30 percent increase is utilities, and $100,000 in special education placement. The School Committee pared back about $220,000 from other areas of the budget to lower the increase those obligations required.

 

"We went in with a budget that wasn't level service. We went in with a budget that was cut," Gordon said.

 

Next week, Gordon will present ideas for reductions to the proposal. The School Committee will have to decide whether or not it will put a revised budget to a vote or try to get the original proposal passed again by the towns.

 

The towns will have 45 days to hold another town meeting after the budget is presented. Should it again be rejected, the School Committee could take it to a districtwide vote in which voters in both towns would cast ballots. If Adams approves the budget as proposed next week at its annual town meeting and the School Committee crafts a lower assessment Cheshrie supports, Adams would not require another vote.

 

"We don't have to hit the panic button. We need thoughtful, careful, deliberations on how to move forward," said Business Manager David Hinkell. 

 

Essentially, the budget process could drag out until September, though School Committee members say they don't want it to. The district is now asking the state to approve a 1/12, or monthly budget, which the Department of Education will determine. That budget is to be no less than 1/12 of this year. 

 

"With this override vote, there are consequences. We may have to cut services," said School Committee member Edmund St. John IV. 

 

St. John said absolutely everything is back on the table — both cuts and ways to raise revenue. If the School Committee still can't close the gap, then it will focus on addressing what it sees as misinformation. While Cheshire's town meeting approved the assessment that triggered the override, a significantly higher number of residents voted against it on Monday. 

 

Rodowicz said she heard residents say there were too many administrators. But, the seven administrators employed in the district all service vital roles and can't be cut, she said. Gordon said she had heard residents suggest cutting sports but "that's what keeps kids hooked into school," brings in some revenue, and costs $200,000, so it is not something she wants to cut. She also heard complaints about a curriculum coordinator position, which was brought back because of a state mandate.

 

St. John suggested holding "town hall style" meetings to outline the budget and field questions of those natures. 

 

For now, though, the budget book is reopened and in the next few weeks the School Committee will be asked to bring another proposal forward.

 

"Time is not necessarily on our side," St. John said, emphasizing that 1/12 of last year's budget won't go very far with the increased obligations.