GRANBY — Residents will be asked to purchase new chairs for community meetings and use free cash to balance about $400,000 in school deficits at the special Town Meeting Monday night.
Six articles will be presented to voters at the meeting at Granby High School starting at 7 p.m.
Articles 3 through 5 will address the school deficits. All three, if approved, would come from $1.2 million the town has in free cash, according to Town Administrator Christopher Martin.
The deficits have been on the books for a number of years, and have not changed between the 2015 and 2016 audits as town officials had hoped, Martin said.
Article 3 addresses a $178,113.50 school lunch deficit. That amount has been building since 2011 but has grown faster in the past few years because more students are opting to bring lunch from home, school officials said.
“It is a challenge particularity right now with declining enrollments for school lunch programs to be viable,” Superintendent Sheryl Stanton said. “We continue to struggle with that.”
Stanton said outstanding lunch balances play a small part in the deficit but most is related to a reduction in revenue — students choosing to bring lunches from home and not participating in the school lunch program.
The district is trying to increase participation, according to Stanton, by starting a breakfast program at the West Street School.
“We do know that when children are not hungry, they are more able to learn and ready to learn,” she said. “That is something we do take responsibility for.”
Article 4 addresses a $122,501.29 School Special Education Circuit Breaker deficit. The deficit ties back to fiscal year 2012 when the town, at the prompting of the state Department of Revenue, moved $122,881 out of the circuit breaker budget and into the general fund, according to Martin.
“For some reason or another, the number wasn’t adjusted,” Martin said.
Article 5 addressed a $98,039.79 School Choice deficit, which according to Martin, the town is still trying to determine the cause of the accounting oversight.
“If they don’t pass, the Department of Revenue will require us to raise it as an appropriation deficit as part of the tax rate setting for next year,” Martin said.
That action could require the town to reduce department budgets to make up for the $398,654.58 deficit.
“We are working well together to make sure that we are communicating effectively, working together to make sure the balances are more in alignment at the end of the fiscal year,” Stanton said.
In Article 6, town voters are asked to approve an $8,000 expense to purchase chairs. Currently, the town rents chairs at about $1,500 to $2,000 a year for town meetings, graduations and other big events, according to Martin.
Buying the chairs, Martin said, would eliminate that expense and have a payback of about two-and-a-half to three years.
Article 2 addresses how the town will accept money from the developer constructing solar arrays on fields along East Street.
With a payment in lieu of tax (PILOT) agreement, the town would receive about $35,000 per year over a 20-year period rather than tax payments over that same period. The advantage to a PILOT agreement, according to Martin, is that under regulation the developer could quickly depreciate value of the equipment which means the town would see a large influx of cash for only the first two to three years.
“This spreads out money over a longer period of time,” Martin said.
Martin added that it would also help level out the revenue stream.
Article 1 is a “housekeeping article,” Martin said. Due to a recent change in law, the town needs to vote on how premium money gained from selling a bond will be used.
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.