ADAMS, Mass. — The Selectmen and Financial Committee saw the $11.5 million McCann Technical school budget and were presented with some future capital projects

 

Superintendent James Brosnan explained the budget Tuesday in the Adams Free Library and broke down the Adams assessment of $978,048. This is a slight increase over this fiscal year's assessment of $948,049. 

 

Brosnan noted that this small change is partly driven by the addition of one student from Adams.

 

"What drove this? One additional student from Adams is in the district," he said. "You'll see that there'll be a lot of swings in this budget when you look at other communities up and down and that's all driven by enrollment … In this case, you only have one change, but that is enough to trigger some changes."

 

Adams has 139 students enrolled in the district.

 

He said the budget increases are generally driven by contractual salary obligations, vocational and educational supplies, utilities, and the addition of two more instructors — although some of this is leveraged by an increase in state funding lowering the assessments.  

 

Brosnan was asked about capital projects and quickly went through some of the projects the school has completed within the building through grants, budgeting, and in-house including classroom renovations, shop renovations, and the gym renovation.

 

He said a more immediate project is addressing some old heating units, many of which are original to the 1960s building.  

 

"I have always said we will do one a year, but then we starting losing two a year," he said. "We want to get those fixed."

 

He did note that the roof was last done in 1997 so a complete roof replacement is in the school's near future.

 

"We repair the roof, and we keep it going. It was very well done, but its time has come," he said. "But we know where the leaks are, and we can patch them quickly."

 

He said this will likely be an Massachusetts School Building Authority project through its accelerated repair program. He said roof projects are typically addressed every 25 years. Currently, McCann's roof is more than 26 years old so he was hopeful McCann could jump up the list. 

 

"So that is going to be an MSBA project down the road, but I won't say when," he said. "I won't predict whether it will be it will be the next year or the year after, but it is pretty close."

 

He said this project would also likely include a complete window replacement. The current windows are single pane and original to the building. 

 

Brosnan touched on the two new hires in the budget: another information technology instructor and an heating, ventilation and air-conditioning instructor.

 

He said although the $3 million state-funded HVAC building has yet to break ground, he wants to get the program rolling.

 

He said there will be an HVAC exploratory this fall, and he hopes to be able to enroll students into the program in January.

 

This all depends on getting the HVAC structure built and although Brosnan said the project is just in its design phase, he was confident it could go out to bid in the spring. 

 

"I am pushing like heck to get it out to bid in May so we can build it and get going … and I think we are in good shape," he said.

 

In general, he said shop supplies are also driving the increase. With more students and rising prices, he has had to budget well over $200,000 for supplies.

 

"The price of anything metal and anything wood has gone up. So, I have an electrical shop and in that electrical shop, they use copper wire. That's going through the roof," he said. "Metal fab, all of the metals that are used, the gases. Advanced manufacturing, all of the metal that goes into it, a very steep increase. And we also had more students. So we are pumping up those shop supplies."

 

The board and committee members also saw the library budget, Veterans Services budget, and the Council on Aging budget. These budgets were all level funded or only slightly increased.

 

Before closing, they saw the Hoosac Valley Regional School District's budget.