NORTHAMPTON — Despite objections from the mayor and Northampton school superintendent, the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School board of trustees approved a budget Tuesday that includes significant unspecified cuts that the school’s leader admits are “intentionally vague.”
Smith Vocational Superintendent Jeffrey Peterson said the school is taking a big financial hit in the fiscal year beginning July 1 because of new state regulations that add up to about $1 million in lost revenue. During the meeting, Peterson took heat for presenting a budget of $7,058,923 without detailing cuts, which he said would be achieved by “attrition and restructuring.” The school’s budget for the current year is approximately $9 million.
The budget passed by a 3-2 vote, with Mayor David J. Narkewicz and Northampton Superintendent John A. Provost voting against, while trustees Michael Cahillane, John Cotton and Thomas FitzGerald voted in favor.
Peterson defended the language used to generalize the cuts, which add up to $305,000 in savings. He said he’s holding out hope that emergency relief he applied for from the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education will come through and the cuts can be avoided.
But Narkewicz and Provost disagreed with burying the details on cuts.
“You’re asking for us to vote on a budget with cuts but we don’t know where the cuts are,” Narkewicz said.
Provost echoed Narkewicz’s statement, adding that he believed Peterson was “underrepresenting the full extent of the cuts.”
“I can’t argue with you,” said Peterson. “You have to vote with your conscience. That’s just where I am.”
A new state law caps out-of-town tuition at vocational schools, Peterson explained, meaning the year’s tuition rate drops from $17,556 to $16,464 per out-of-town student. That new regulation, he said, adds up to about $400,000 in lost revenue for the school.
Additionally, another new law limits exploratory periods — a half-year period during which freshmen experiment with vocational school shops and decide which one they will choose — to vocational schools within the student’s own district. That, Peterson explained, will have a major impact on enrollment and tuition to the tune of $494,000 in lost revenue.
“That’s really going to hurt us,” said Peterson. “By sophomore year they’ve already explored and assimilated to another district and the chances of us getting them as sophomores is greatly reduced by that.”
Additionally, a third state law taking effect reduces out-of-district reimbursement for special needs students by half, which Peterson estimates will result in $165,000 in lost revenue.
Still, Narkewicz said Peterson and the board have known about the coming changes and challenged Peterson’s decision to hold out for “a savior from Boston” that Narkewicz said he’s “dubious of.”
“I understand cuts are difficult, but it’s incumbent on us to know what they are and what we’re voting on,” Narkewicz said.
Peterson said he’s awaiting word from the state education department on his application for emergency relief from the new tuition and exploration regulations. If approved, Peterson said, the relief would help the school cope financially.
“If these regulations do not change for us, I have serious concerns about our financial viability in the future,” Peterson wrote in his budget highlights.
To balance the budget, trustees also voted Tuesday to take $282,000 from the school’s revolving tuition fund, to which last year’s significant budget surplus contributed $700,000.
“It’s a total guessing game at this point and it’s very frustrating,” Peterson said in an interview Wednesday. “Nobody else has the particular budget issues we have — it’s like hitting a moving target.”
Peterson conceded he’s being intentionally opaque about the cuts.
“Because we have to cut so much there are some positions that may have to get reduced or cut, and I’m trying to avoid that as best I can and that’s why they weren’t in the budget,” he said Wednesday. “I would rather not have conversations with people about them not having a job until I know for sure.”
Declining again Wednesday to be specific, Peterson offered this statement: “We try to keep these cuts as far away from the classroom as possible — the last thing we want to do is cut classroom positions.”
Trustees are expected to revisit the budget in the coming weeks after officials hear from the state about the school’s request for relief.
Amanda Drane can be contacted at adrane@gazettenet.com.