AMHERST — Officials from the four towns whose students attend the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District are in agreement on the method for determining how much each community will pay for the fiscal year 2020 budget.
A “four town” meeting Saturday yielded support for what is being called Option A, or the 50 percent minimum contribution method, said Sean Mangano, the finance director for the district.
That formula determines how Amherst, Pelham, Shutesbury and Leverett will divvy up the assessments for a proposed $32.09 million school budget that is $274,829, or .86 percent higher, than the current year’s $31.82 million budget.
The four towns are responsible for covering $20.6 million of the budget, with the remainder of the funding coming from state aid and other sources.
Under this preferred formula, Amherst will see the biggest percentage increase in its assessment, at 2.5 percent, or $402,870, from $16.05 million to $16.45 million. This is a slightly smaller increase than if the towns used a different method similar to what was used last year, which is called the fallback method. The methodology was developed to include a factor for how wealthy each community is and how many students each is sending to the district’s schools, both based on five-year averages.
Most affected by the revised formula is Shutesbury, which would see its assessment decrease by $320, essentially remaining at $1.78 million. If the towns use the fallback method instead, Shutesbury’s assessment would drop by $39,027 to $1.74 million.
Both Leverett and Pelham are little affected by the revised formula as compared to the fallback method. Leverett’s assessment would increase by $12,050 from $1.46 million to $1.47 million, and Pelham’s assessment will drop by $35,238 from $947,186 to $911,947.
A second option Mangano presented, Option B, based on the regional agreement and a five-year phase-in to ensure no town pays more than $200,00 above the statutory requirement, is favorable to all but Shutesbury, which would have seen a 4.4 percent, $77,874 increase, in its assessment.
After two years the revised method will be reevaluated.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
