GRANBY — Proposed cuts to staffing, sports, music and extracurricular activities next year “get at the core of what we can offer kids,” Superintendent Sheryl Stanton recently told the School Committee.
“These are very difficult and painful, not that others haven’t been, but there’s nowhere else to go except in the core of what we offer kids,” Stanton said, outlining her fiscal 2019 budget during a public hearing April 30.
For weeks now, the School Committee, Select Board and Finance Committee have been discussing potential ways to make ends meet after unanticipated expenses overshot this year’s school budget by $65,891, and a $497,439 gap looms in next year’s school budget. According to Town Administrator Christopher Martin, the process has included a lot of “behind the scenes fighting.”
The School Committee is requesting $8,839,684 for fiscal 2019. That’s $497,439 less than what members say they need to operate, unless town officials agree to give $200,000 in found money to the schools, Martin said. In that scenario, the gap would be $297,439.
On Monday night, the School Committee, Finance Committee and Select Board met again for a joint meeting to discuss how to plug the gap. Discussing metrics like minimum net school spending, per-pupil spending, special education costs and transportation, progress was made but further discussion will be continued at a later date.
The School Committee may ask for additional funding it needs to avoid cuts through a warrant article at the second half of the annual Town Meeting in June.
If that fails to pass, Stanton said, the district will have to make significant cuts. Those proposed include two high school teacher positions totaling $126,157, one first-grade teacher, the whole junior varsity sports program, $18,305 from the music department, a data manager position, and holding off on a $41,725 technology upgrade in the high school.
“We have reduced our budget in a reasonable way in order to be able to offer the education that the students in this district deserve, but now we are saying that there is no reasonable cut that can be made,” School Committee Chairman Emre Evren said at an April 19 joint meeting. “The conversations from this point on will be even more difficult.”
The problem, school officials say, is that for years minimum net school spending has not met the needs of the school, and a long-term solution is needed.
“We’ve been saying for quite a while that it’s insufficient, and it isn’t anyone’s fault, we’re not trying to blame anyone but we need to sit down and find not only a short-term solution for this year, but then a long-term solution so that we’re not here having this conversation year after year,” Stanton said.
School officials hope the upcoming Town Meeting votes can provide the school some relief, while they urge residents to understand the financial problems are not unique when it comes to rural school districts.
“We all know towns like Granby, small communities in western Massachusetts are disproportionately underfunded under Chapter 70,” Stanton said in an interview. “In towns like Granby a larger burden of the cost of education is falling on the towns and those costs are often not related to what happens in the classroom.”
According to Stanton, long-term changes to the funding formula, historically tied to enrollment, are needed. She said part of the problem is generating more revenue without burdening taxpayers.
“I just don’t think it’s fair, sometimes people have this idea that we need to punish the schools because they’re not spending within their budget, but the budget is not realistic to begin with,” Select Board Chairman Mark Bail said at a March 19 Select Board meeting. “I’m sure if you ask some of the teachers in Granby they would tell you the same thing.”
While enrollment fell slightly this year, Stanton said it has stabilized since a dramatic dip following the 2008 recession and the MacDuffie School opening in 2011.
The Finance Committee is concerned that using stabilization funds to cover operating expenses is unsustainable, Finance Committee Chairman Robert Glesmann III said. In all, there is about $3 million in the town’s three stabilization accounts, he said.
“It’s like a savings account — the minute you start using that to pay ongoing expenses, the money sooner or later is going to dry up,” Glesmann said.
Granby music teacher Greg Williams said at the meeting that about 20 percent of his job is spent fundraising just to put on the regular music program. More cuts would mean that essential parts of the curriculum would be threatened.
“The extras are disappearing and we’re just trying to raise the money to pay for the curriculum expenses. They’re not frills,” he said.
At the April 30 School Committee meeting, attendees said that at least 25 teaching positions have been cut over the last decade. Evren shared the School Committee’s concerns about regionalization, echoing the town’s opposition to sending Granby students to neighboring schools to save money.
“No one really wants to regionalize in our area,” Evren said. “We have run through these conversations. They’re not always happening in front of a camera.”
“I think that’s the trouble we’re faced with now is… how to weather the storm right now, get past this and hope that better days are ahead of us,” said Select Board chairman Glen Sexton at the April 30 meeting.
This story was updated May 8 at 1:50 p.m. to reflect that it is Greg Williams who is a music educator.