GRANBY — Controversy over the school budget — a common theme in recent years — reared its head again at last week’s special Town Meeting.
On one side, school officials are asking the town to help fund unanticipated expenses this school year, caused in part by students moving into the district after the school system budget was finalized. School officials say they don’t want a tight budget to negatively impact educational quality at the school.
On the other side are Finance Committee members who want school officials to keep better track of the system’s budget, and some residents who don’t want their property taxes going up to pay for the unanticipated expenses.
The divide played out at a special Town Meeting on Feb. 13, when residents were asked to vote on four articles to transfer a total of $186,576 from town stabilization funds to the school system.
The articles requested:
—$84,085 for the tuition of a special education student in need of a change of schools;
—$19,500 to pay for required transitional services for some special needs students;
—$49,163 to pay the salary of a new second-grade teacher; and
— $33,828 for tuition for a new Granby resident to continue a course of study at Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School in Northampton.
Two-thirds of the voters must vote yes for a transfer from the stabilization fund to be authorized. While a majority of voters supported all four articles, two failed to pass by the required margin: the new teaching position and the tuition to send the student to Smith Vocational.
Of those two, money for the new teaching position is the only funding considered discretionary and not mandated by law, according to Select Board Chairman Mark Bail.
Superintendent Sheryl Stanton said the school will go back to the drawing board to find $82,991.03 for the two articles that failed to muster the two-thirds majority. Finance Committee Chairman John Libera said the money must be paid, either by another town vote or through next year’s taxes.
“I’m really disappointed,” said Jessica Junk Swistak, an eighth- and 11th-grade English teacher at the high school. “I think this is just another indication that the town needs more forward thinking.”
She added, “It’s the same players that come every time and vote these down.”
Stanton said officials made the decision to add a teacher for a third second-grade class late last summer — after the current budget was finalized — when eight students moved into Granby’s second-grade class. Not adding the teacher would have meant two larger classes and more strain on teachers, Stanton said.
Libera expressed concern with that move.
“They made a decision rather than split those children into two classes,” Libera said. “There is no question that the money has been spent by the school department and that the town will have to pay for it.”
Tax rates in Granby rank 35th highest in the state, Libera said.
“That means a lot to people,” Libera said. “We have a lot of people on fixed incomes and retired people. People are concerned.”
In the current fiscal year, the town’s $20.6 million budget includes about $12.9 million for the school district, or 62.7 percent of the total budget, according to Libera. School expenses include retired teachers’ health insurance, transportation, the East Meadow School upgrades, money paid to Pathfinder Regional Vocational Technical High School and other school choice programs.
He said the Finance Committee only makes budget recommendations and has no authority over decisions. The committee advised residents to vote against paying the salary of a new second-grade teacher, and did so to prove a point about fiscal responsibility, Libera said.
Stanton understands the desire among many residents to know where their resources are going, and it’s a question she’s willing to answer.
“I ask, well, where do you think this shift of funding should come from?” Stanton said. “Should we increase class sizes at a grade level? Should we lay off a teacher so we can then pay this tuition bill?”
School Committee chairman Emre Evren said the town needs to better understand the specific needs of the school.
“There is an unfortunate situation where we are not seeing eye to eye with the town Finance Committee with how we are approaching needs services programs,” Evren said. “There is really no other committee that has been as scrutinized and put under the camera as much as our committee.”
Evren said the School Committee tries to make its budgets as transparent as possible, and the disagreements with the Finance Committee are forming a roadblock to progress.
“We’re always going to be in a bit of a conflict with everybody else,” Libera said. “The Finance Committee is often called the most thankless job in the town.”
Evren said the school’s situation was misrepresented at the special Town Meeting, and the unanticipated expenses are too much for a school system already struggling with decreasing enrollment, rising operation costs and inadequate state funding.
Since 2010, when residents voted not to finance a new junior-senior high school, and 2011 when the private MacDuffie School opened in Granby, the school had been struggling to keep students in the district. Enrollment shrank over 32.8 percent between the 2010 and 2017 fiscal years, according to a Finance Committee report, but Stanton said that enrollment has stabilized and is no longer declining.
“As much as we are able to, our goal is to keep Granby students in Granby,” Stanton said.
Libera, Stanton and Emre agree on one thing — the state needs to pick up more of the cost for special education. With rising costs for special education and health care, coupled with inflation, the state program — the Special Education Circuit Breaker — isn’t keeping up.
“I would say the state should be reimbursing a lot more of the special education funding,” Evren said. “Any time a child needs more than we’re able to offer, we find ourselves in the position we were in.”
Sarah Robertson can be reached at srobertson@gazettenet.com