Williams Cross Country Meet Saturday at Mount Greylock, Off-Site Parking Available

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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- The Williams College men's and women's cross country teams will welcome 27 schools to Mount Greylock Regional School on Saturday for the Purple Valley Classic.
 
Due to the building project at the junior-senior high school, the college is asking fans to park at Margaret Lindley Park and use a shuttle bus to and from the school.
 
Five of the top 10 women's teams in Division III are scheduled to take part in the race.
 
The Williams women, who are  ranked fourth in the nation, will be joined by third-ranked MIT, fifth-ranked Geneseo, seventh-ranked Ithaca and eighth-ranked Middlebury.
 
Head coach Pete Farwell is excited to see his squad compete with such a strong field, which he said is "perhaps the strongest ever for this meet."
 
"The varsity is well-prepared for the 6K distance and knows the course well and how to pace the race," Farwell said. "We'll see where we're at, in the midst of high level training."
 
The Women's Varsity 6k will begin at 1 p.m.
 
The men's varsity 8K race starts at 12:10.
 
The men's meet boasts an enticing competitive field with 10 regionally-ranked teams according to the recent USTFCCCA poll. From New England, second-ranked MIT, third-ranked Amherst, fourth-ranked Middlebury, and seventh-ranked Tufts will be in attendance.
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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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