GRANBY — Town Meeting on Monday took a step toward ensuring that Granby’s schools will avoid significant cuts by transferring $395,000 from a town stabilization account to support a budget of around $8.07 million.
Requested by the School Committee over the objections of the Finance Committee, the transfer passed the two-thirds threshold exactly, 120 votes to 60, and is the first part of a $691,799 strategy, which includes a Proposition 2½ tax-cap override that school officials say will allow them to provide students the same level of services in fiscal 2018 as in the current budget year.
The override for $296,799 will be be brought to an election scheduled for June 26.
Without this new revenue, there would likely be fewer electives for high school students, larger classes and more study halls, according to school officials.
School Committee Chairman Emre Evren said the additional money for the school budget is important to avoid losing up to nine high school and middle school teachers. Many of the nearly 300 students at Granby Junior Senior High School walked out of classes on Friday to protest that possibility.
A handout elaborated on the extent of the cuts that would be needed.
“The combination of those two, which total $691,000, that corresponds to the reductions you are seeing on that handout,” Evren said.
Prior to Town Meeting, Superintendent Sheryl Stanton told parents at a brief School Committee meeting that trimming the budget would mean cutting graduation requirements and reducing science and history classes.
Among the courses that would be dropped would be mythology, creative writing, business math, personal finance, environmental science, psychology and legal studies.
At the middle school, Stanton said, there would be just one team of teachers, rather than two. In addition, one first-grade teacher would be laid off.
Stanton said the stabilization money and override can provide the school stability and needed traction around its programs.
Without the new money, the school budget would be $7.38 million, a nearly 3 percent drop from the current year’s $7.59 million budget.
The vote came despite the opposition of the Finance Committee. Chairman John Libera Jr. said the budget supported by his committee meets required minimum state funding, with the supplement of the override.
“The key thing here is the notion of level service is silly,” Libera said.
Libera also expressed concern that the stabilization account from which the money was drawn would be depleted in just one more year. School officials, though, say Granby has $3.3 million available in various stabilization accounts.
Evren said two factors are creating problems. First, state funding is insufficient through the Chapter 70 state aid. Second, declining enrollment since the 2011-12 school year began a “vicious cycle” that Granby has yet to escape.
He presented statistics showing that compared to similar neighboring communities, including Belchertown, Hadley, South Hadley and Ludlow, Granby is contributing a smaller percentage above the state-mandated minimum to make up for the inadequacy of Chapter 70 money.
“What we know is that none of these districts are going for an override or a stabilization transfer,” Evren said.
While many voters spoke in favor of the creativity used by school officials to create the new budget, resident Joseph Furnia said all the money should have been put to a ballot vote.
“In reality, we should be going for a $691,000 override and we should all be paying more taxes to right the ship,” Furnia said.
The schools are part of a $16.2 million municipal operating budget.
In other business, Town Meeting defeated $50,000 for engineering study on the West Street School building, 92-90. Those against that spending said the building should possibly be demolished and its lot sold, while those in favor cited the possibility it could be used as a town office building.
A series of capital items were approved, including a $26,000 transit vehicle for the schools, $45,565 for a school truck, $41,046 for a police cruiser, $72,500 for a Highway Department truck and $60,000 for new exterior doors at the Granby Junior Senior High School.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
