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Williamstown Elementary School Committee Chairman Dan Caplinger, left, and Superintendent Douglas Dias.

Williamstown School Budget Looks at Staff Reductions

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Williamstown Elementary School is looking to cut three teachers to offset rising health insurance costs.
 
Citing a 14 percent increase in health insurance cost and a need to make the district's budget more sustainable, School Superintendent Douglas Dias told the School Committee on Wednesday his preliminary fiscal 2017 budget includes a reduction of three teachers from current staffing levels.
 
"The challenge is to make sure we're going to have a budget that will be sustainable ... and make sure we maintain quality education," he said. "We looked at areas where we can consolidate without diminishing the students' experience.
 
"It's not the part of the job that I enjoy. Looking at a 14 percent increase in health insurance costs and contractual obligations ... you have to look at something to offset that."
 
For now, those things include a math interventionist position, a speech paraprofessional and a consolidation of the school's pre-kindergarten program, collapsing three sections of about 30 students down to two, Dias said.
 
Two teachers in the preschool program, called Side by Side, urged the committee to reconsider that cut.
 
"We recognize that you have fiscal constraints," teacher Fern Murtagh said. "But, when you think about cutting and changing what has been a model program for nearly three decades, you need to think about the program over the years ... past, present, and future.
 
"There are the fiscal issues. But remember, eliminating the full-day program does not eliminate half of the costs of the Side by Side program because some mandated services associated with [individualized education programs] and the associated staff would be continued in the half-day program, and you will face the loss of full-day tuition income."
 
Murtagh said that she and fellow preschool teacher Sherry Monte learned of the proposed cut on Wednesday morning.
 
Monte told the committee that if the school does not adequately address early learning needs of children, there are potential costs that the district will incur down the line as those children grow.
 
Both pointed out that Williamstown's Side by Side program was a pioneer in early education and has been a model program.
 
"At a time when the rest of the country is catching up and understanding the importance of early childhood education, it's a shame that we're looking at cutting it."
 
Another impact of the budget's proposed belt-tightening will be seen in the school's current fourth-grade class, a "bubble" class with higher than typical enrollment. The last two years, the committee has discussed the possibility of reducing it from four sections to three — like most grades at the school — but decided to keep four classrooms in the budget.
 
As the cohort moves to Grade 5, it will be consolidated to three sections of 23 pupils each under Dias' initial budget.
 
Principal Joelle Brookner said the 23-child class size is acceptable.
 
"I personally had classes of 23 here a couple of times," she said, referring to her days as a teacher at the school. "It's higher than we've had here, but it's not malpractice by any stretch."
 
School Committee member Catherine Keating, currently a fourth-grade parent, agreed.
 
"The class sizes here seem reasonable to me," she said. "Fifteen to a class seems low for a fifth-grade class."
 
Besides the health insurance spike, the other factor driving austerity in the budget is a desire by Dias to move the district away from reliance on school-choice revenue.
 
The school historically has had no problem filling the school choice slots it makes available, and the revenue generated from those pupils (about $5,000 per student from the sending towns) created a reserve fund that grew as high as $490,000, according to figures cited Wednesday by Business Manager Nancy Rauscher.
 
For several years, however, the district has tapped that balance to offset operating  expenses, which Dias said he wants to move back into the appropriated budget — revenue received from state aid, grants and, principally, local property taxes.
 
To that end, the district's preliminary budget is looking for a 4.6 percent increase in revenue from the town, even though overall spending in the district is only projected to go up by about $25,000 for a proposed budget of about $6.4 million.
 
"When you get to the bottom line, we currently have about $290,000 worth of expenses charged to school choice that in FY17 we want to shift to the operating budget," Rauscher said. "So once again we can build up a reserve. The result is the percentage increase is higher than what you've seen in the past. I think it's 4.64 percent.
 
"That's in large part from us allocating expenses."
 
Dias said the 4.64 percent increase in the district's assessment to the town is a starting point for conversations with Williamstown's Finance Committee as the town goes through its FY17 budget process in preparation for May's annual town meeting, where all spending is subject to a vote.
 
In recent years, the town has offered about a 2.5 percent increase in its elementary school budget. Dias said if the district cannot get the full 4.6 percent, it may need to budget more against school choice and, therefore, build the reserve less aggressively.
 
"Nancy and I have met with the Fin Comm and the town manager," Dias said. "They were clear they wanted to advocate for the best quality education we could. That said, I can't mindlessly go in there and say I want a 10 percent increase."
 
School Committee Chairman Dan Caplinger expressed optimism about the budget's prospects at Town Hall.
 
"Frankly, they may be OK with more [than 4.6 percent]," Caplinger said. "Part of the increase is us reallocating expenses from non-appropriated to the appropriated budget.
 
"I know there are smart people on Fin Comm who may be open to that. On the other hand, there are plenty of competing demands on town funds this year. It's always a balancing act outside our control."
 
In other business on Wednesday night, the School Committee discussed Dias' recommendations for school choice openings in FY17 and the 2016-17 school calendar.
 
The administration is recommending adding seven school choice slots in the fall, a net increase of one after six school choice pupils in the current sixth grade graduate in June. The proposed slots would be allotted as follows: one in second grade, four in third grade and two in fourth grade.
 
The committee will be asked to approve the school choice openings and calendar at its March meeting.
 
The calendar as currently drawn up would see classes begin on Thursday, Sept. 1, and end, barring snow days, on June 14.
 
The school's December vacation would close the facility for six days — Dec. 26-30 and Monday, Jan. 2. The biggest anomaly is the second week in November.
 
Dias reported that administrators around the county are scheduling professional development days for teachers on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Not having classes that day would create an odd week for students with a midweek day off and the Veterans Day holiday on Friday, Nov. 11.
 
Committee member John Skavlem expressed concerns about the academic impact of such a schedule and indicated he would continue to press the point when the calendar is brought back for a vote.
 
Brookner explained that in the past the town has preferred the school, the town's only polling place, close for presidential elections because of the anticipated higher turnout and security concerns.

Tags: budget cuts,   fiscal 2016,   school budget,   WES,   

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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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