GRANBY — Voters in Granby Monday handily defeated a nearly $300,000 Proposition 2½ override that would have ensured the schools would be able to offer the same level of services to students next year.
The $296,799 override mustered just 38 percent support from voters, failing 464-290, according to unofficial results provided by Town Clerk Katherine Kelly-Regan.
About 16½ percent of the town’s 4,567 voters cast ballots.
School Committee Chairman Emre Evren said he was disappointed in the result, especially for the students who will be impacted by reductions to programs and services.
“This means positions dependent on those funds will not be reinstated and we will see some positions reduced,” Evren said.
Superintendent Sheryl Stanton said in an email that a high school special education teacher, a high school English and language arts position and three paraprofessional positions will be eliminated, while a data manager position requested will not be filled.
A head teacher position at the elementary level will also be removed, and special education tuition will be reduced by $70,000, Stanton said.
The override was the second part of a $691,799 strategy aimed at getting to an $8.07 million budget that would preserve what is offered at the schools through the current year’s $7.59 million budget.
At Town Meeting June 12, residents agreed to transfer $395,000 from a town stabilization account to the schools to bring the budget to $7.77 million, about 5.4 percent higher than the $7.38 million budget recommended by the town’s Finance Committee.
Prior to the June 12 meeting, school officials said without the additional money, teachers would be laid off at Granby Junior Senior High School, and there would likely be fewer electives for high school students, larger classes and more study halls.
Evren said the main point of the override was to increase the base operating budget so school officials don’t have to return to Town Meeting again asking for help in filling gaps.
“The unfortunate possibility is this won’t help us to do what we told Town Meeting was needed to stabilize finances,” Evren said.
He added that the message that Granby is frugal and spends a smaller percentage above the state-mandated per-pupil minimum than neighboring school districts didn’t resonate with voters.
Stanton said the override would have fully eliminated the nearly $700,000 gap, and added funding to the base of the budget permanently because of the nature of a tax-cap override.
“Needless to say I am disappointed with the outcome of the override vote,” Stanton said.
The override, she added, was one prong of a three-pronged approach to stabilize the district.
The second prong is increasing enrollment by reducing the number of students who leave the district by school choice and increasing those who “choice in” to Granby.
“This is difficult to accomplish with the chronic reduction to the budget and increased fixed cost expenses such as workers compensation and health insurance,” Stanton said.
The final prong is examining the budget process and having “challenging conversation” to convince town officials to abandon a formula put in place during an override more than a decade ago that provided the schools a budget based on minimum net school spending plus $305,000.
“We have a lot of work to do, but I am confident that together, we cannot only identify the issues correctly, but that we can work together to solve them as well,” Stanton said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com
