Williamstown Finance Committee Reviews School Spending Proposal
Interim Superintendent Kimberley Grady presents the fiscal 2019 budget to the Williamstown Finance Committee on Wednesday.
The newly expanded region benefited from no increase in health insurance rates from FY18, as did the town.
For Williamstown's taxpayers, who will see a single assessment for preK-12 education on this May's town meeting warrant, the middle-high school portion of the bill is up by $226,521, a 3.54 percent increase from $6.4 million in FY18 to $6.6 million for the coming school year.
For the elementary school, the assessment needs some context. Some of the revenue that used to be associated with the town budget (when Williamstown Elementary was a town department) now goes to the regional school district, and some of the costs that used to be born by the school (for health insurance of retirees prior to July 1, 2018) now goes to the town.
When those costs are adjusted for an apples-to-apples comparison, the property tax burden for Williamstown Elementary comes out to $6.5 million, up from $6.4 million this year, a change of 1.84 percent.
Combined, Williamstown taxpayers will be asked to pay an assessment of $11.8 million, the sum of its assessment for the elementary school and Mount Greylock.
In the "apples to apples" sense, Williamstown's total tax burden for education -- after cost and revenue shifts -- is $13,101,073. Last year, it was $12,275,757, so the increase is $343,316, or 2.7 percent.
Some of that increase is associated with the last year of a phased-in increase to taxpayers in Williamstown and Lanesborough for bond payments associated with the building project at Mount Greylock.
On the operational side, there are program enhancements at both schools associated with FY19 budget, interim Superintendent Kimberley Grady told the Fin Comm.
At Williamstown, the district will maintain staffing and provide 1:1 ChromeBooks in Grades 3 to 5 to bring the school up to the level at Lanesborough Elementary. The elementary budget also includes funds for the school's Math Club, Lego Robotics team and Shakespeare & Company residency; all three of those programs were removed from the appropriated budget a couple of years ago but continued through funding from the school's charitable endowment.
At Mount Greylock, the FY19 budget includes the return of a school resource officer, additional co-curricular funding targeted at the arts and the addition of a school adjustment counsellor.
"We have had a rise in students with anxiety disorders and those in need of alternative education programs," Grady explained to the Fin Comm.
Grady and Mount Greylock Principal Mary MacDonald also talked about how the middle-high school is going to handle an incoming "bubble" class that has been percolating through both feeder elementary schools.
The projected seventh-grade next fall stands at 120 (with no new choice seats and just 11 choice students matriculating from the two elementary schools, combined). The renovated and rebuilt Mount Greylock was designed for a student population of 535, which converts to an average of about 90 per class.
Grady said that 535 number really is more of an issue for student lockers than classroom space.
"The design of the building … still gives us flexibility to give us the kind of programming we want," MacDonald said. "Juniors and seniors will probably share lockers. They do right now.
"We may have to do some more creative assignments [for middle school teachers]. We anticipate this is for one group coming through."
That said, the Level 1 middle-high school continues to be a draw, MacDonald said.
"I take a lot of calls from parents interested in coming to Mount Greylock," she said. "When they hear there aren't [School Choice] seats, they want to know who is selling real estate. So, we'll see."
The Finance Committee, which earlier this winter received a couple of sneak peaks at how regionalization would impact the way the school budget is built, did not take any votes Wednesday on whether to recommend the district's budget to town meeting. That vote will come later in the spring when the committee makes its advisory votes on all fiscal warrant articles.
The Fin Comm members Wednesday agreed to pass along any additional questions on the spending plan to Grady and Mount Greylock Transition Committee Chairman Joe Bergeron and left open the possibility of further discussion of the school budget at next Wednesday's Fin Comm meeting.
Tags: Finance Committee, fiscal 2019, MGRSD_budget,
