Adams-Cheshire Must Close $600K Gap to Apply Collins Options
CHESHIRE, Mass. — The Adams-Cheshire Regional School District needs to find $600,000 to sustain current services and add the educational resources recommended by a public management group.
The School Committee's Audit and Evaluation subcommittee on Thursday found that between closing an elementary school, negotiating health insurance and other recommendations the district needs to find more than $500,000 to reach that figure.
"We have a plan, it is a good plan and it is great for our community," School Committee member Darlene Rodowicz said. "From an education perspective, we have a roadmap, but we have this gap here that will need help."
The University of Massachusetts' Edward J. Collins Jr. Center for Public Management has provided a detailed list of options for the school district, ranging from grade reconfigurations to enrollment goals to academic assets. The study, which was commissioned by the town of Adams to find options for the district to secure a more financially and educationally sound future, was unveiled Wednesday night.
Rodowicz said the district has already been hit with a $300,000 budget gap for fiscal 2018 it needs to fill just to maintain current services, but another $300,000 will be needed to meet the recommendations the Collins Center presented.
The Collins Center said by closing a school, the district could save between $376,000 and $555,000, but Rodowicz said the district may not see these savings right away.
Other than smaller building costs, much of the savings come from transportation reimbursement, which won't be in hand during the 2017-2018 school year.
"It would be good if we could get some details on this because what the report says are savings will be won't occur for two years," she said. "We need to find what savings will occur in year one to fund the programs we want to fund."
This means the district would need to pull funds from the other Collins Center recommendations. The center's researchers said the district could save nearly $750,000 by switching the health insurance providers and another $155,000 through other changes. But many of these changes rely on contract negotiations.
Rodowicz said the other option would be to ask state representation to push for emergency transportation reimbursement release to carry the district through the year.
School Committee member Stephan Vigna said it was important for the towns to realize that any savings the district finds will be re-invested to improve programming. He said the study was not meant to cut the assessments for the towns right away but to provide a clear direction forward that eventually would be more educationally sound and economically sustainable.
"We need that money, and we need more. We need to vocalize that and have the towns understand that ... the goal is not to just save the towns some money," he said. "It is a roadmap going forward that in the long run could save the towns' money but in the mean time we need those funds."
Superintendent Robert Putnam said the Collins Center has set the district up with a path to improve education and outline better ways to spend its money.
He said the communities need to realize this still comes with a price tag.
"These are the key recommendations that we got and they all improve the education but they cost something," Putnam said. "You don't improve without spending the money and we found out how to spend it wisely but bottom line there is a price tag."
The subcommittee did ask the Adams-Cheshire administrative team to provide it with recommendations for reconfiguring the district.
The Collins Center offered eight different alternatives to reconfigure the district.
The group members agreed that they were in favor of moving the eighth grade to the high school portion of Hoosac Valley High School and moving Grades 4 and 5 to Hoosac Valley's middle school program.
The other option was to move pre-K through Grade 1 to the high school.
Putnam said it would be beneficial to split students into the proposed groupings because it would allow administrators and faculty to focus on goals attributed to these age groups.
Hoosac Valley Principal Jeremiah Ames said one perk of moving the pre-K to Hoosac Valley was that there could be an early education program at the high school. He said a vocational program could still be accomplished by having pre-K spend some time at the high school.
Although the subcommittee and administrators agreed on what to do with the high school, the jury was still out on which elementary school to recommend closing.
The School Committee has asked the administrative team to come up with a solid recommendation for an upcoming meeting.
Public tours of all three school buildings will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 14; Wednesday, Feb. 15, and Thursday, Feb. 16, as a way to gather public input and provide information. Tours begin at 5:30 each night at Cheshire Elementary, and continue at Plunkett School about an hour later. Residents can go to take the tours over one or two nights.
Putnam said he plans to speak to the Cheshire Selectmen on Feb. 21 and the Adams Selectmen on Feb. 22.
The School Committee will hold a public forum on Feb. 27 and plans to make a final decision March 2, and vote the budget on March 13.
"I want to be able to say we did everything we could," Putnam said. "I want everyone to have the opportunity to come and we have tried to offer these opportunities so everyone can be involved in making this very important decision."
Tags: ACRSD_budget, study,
