ADAMS, Mass. — The Adams-Cheshire Regional School Committee approved a $19,750,146 budget for fiscal 2019 budget that is a 2.46 percent increase over this year's budget.
During a boilerplate budget hearing in the Hoosac Valley Elementary School auditorium Monday, the committee unanimously passed the uncontroversial spending plan that represents a $474,608 increase.
"With that, we have an approved budget from the School Committee and I want to thank everyone involved in this," Chairman Paul Butler.
The spending plan builds off this year's budget, which brought on additional educational support positions and introduced new programming but at the cost of closing Cheshire Elementary School.
"This budget is good budget based on programming that will improve educational performance," Superintendent Robert Putnam said. "The development of this budget was informed by the Collins Center Report and the Turnaround Plan."
Originally the budget was closer to $19.5 million, however, with the addition of a one-time $200,000 reimbursement from Berkshire Health Group Retiree Drug Subsidy Funds, the budget slightly increased. The payment allowed the school district to keep its health insurance premium splits for retirees the same as this year, although the retirees' portions will rise over the next three years.
Adams' minimal contribution will be $4,414,516 and Cheshire's will be $2,380,847. These amounts are calculated by the state.
The over the minimum assessments, which the school district sets, were purposefully kept low to provide both towns with some relief.
Adams will be assessed $16,535 and Cheshire $5,505.
The total assessment, within the levy limit, for Adams will be $4,966,936 which is a .528 percent increase and the total assessment for Cheshire will be $2,564,184, which is a 2.957 percent increase.
This budget continues to build on this year's budget and funds a full-time school psychologist as well as a new STEM teacher that will allow expanded programming at the high school level.
The meeting was sparsely attended, with mostly administrators and teachers present, and few brought up any substantial issues with the budget. That's a change from recent years when budget deliberations had stoked opposition at meetings. Last year's budget fights left the school district without an approved spending plan coming in the fiscal year.
The budget will now go before both communities for review before going to their respective town meetings.
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Adams Welcomes New Officer; Appoints Housing Authority Board Member
By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
Officer Cole Desroches recently graduated from the Police Academy.
ADAMS, Mass. — The Selectmen welcomed the newest member of the Adams Police Department, Officer Cole Desroches, on Wednesday evening.
Desroches graduated from the Police Academy on March 22 in the top tier in his class. He's currently in the field training program and assigned to Sgt. Curtis Crane. He attended Hoosac Valley High School and Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
"He's going to serve and protect the town of Adams very well," said Crane, who with Sgts. Matthew Wright and Gregory Onorato stepped in to introduce the new officer while Chief R. Scott Kelley was on vacation.
"We don't often get an opportunity to kind of talk about, frankly, some of the positive things that are happening in town and one of the many things that I feel are positive with are the Adams Police Department," said Town Administrator Jay Green. "We are right now at full staff. We have a full complement of officers. We have a chief who just resigned a three-year contract. ... We have four very capable sergeants (including Donna Malloy)."
The force consists of the chief, the four sergeants, a full-time detective and 11 patrol officers. It also has a new position in Cpl. Joshua Baker who is responsible for training and keeping staff equipped.
"We're on the cutting edge of ensuring that we have proper training in a very changing environment with law enforcement," continued Green. "And we have a nice complement of officers and we have a well-respected detective who handles some very complicated cases."
He called out the half-dozen officers who attended the meeting for the work they're doing as well as the K9 unit.
Desroches graduated from the Police Academy on March 22 in the top tier in his class. He's currently in the field training program and assigned to Sgt. Curtis Crane.
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Michael Wynn, who was selected in January to run the center, submitted a level operating budget of $57,500 but said he could pull funding from different lines to ensure there was money for advertising this fall.
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The Selectmen on Wednesday night voted to award the bid to Mackin Construction Co. Inc. of Greenfield, which plans to invest $11 million to build out 20 or more one- and two-bedroom apartments in the three-story classroom wing that parallels Columbia Street.
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The Selectmen two weeks ago had requested the utility appear before the board after receiving numerous complaints over flickering lights, including in Town Hall.
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