When Shutesbury Town Meeting convenes Saturday, residents will have a say on the method by which the town’s contribution to the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools’ budget is calculated.
For Jeff Lacy of Baker Road, the meeting should be time to revisit the 2015 recommendation from an assessment method study group on which he served, which suggested using a more equitable formula based on the wealth of each town, such as the state’s statutory method.
Since that recommendation was made, though, Shutesbury has continued to feel the pain from assessments calculated by assessment formulas that don’t fully take into account wealth, Lacy said. The town spent about $265,000 more this year with the formula, and would spend $311,477 more next year if the status quo is kept.
“If we approve it we will be $2 million behind for the decade,” Lacy said. “For Shutesbury, it’s worth it not to approve it.”
But Amherst officials are cautioning that any push to reject a revised assessment formula for how the four towns, including Leverett and Pelham, pay for the district’s budget, and reverting to the statutory method, could force budget cuts at the middle school and high school.
The Amherst Finance Committee Tuesday voted 5-0 to issue a statement that, should the revised formula not be adopted unanimously by all four towns, Amherst will not be in a position to appropriate any more money to the regional school budget.
On April 22, the Amherst Town Council approved next year’s $16.45 million assessment for the regional schools. That assessment is 2.5 percent, or $402,870 higher, than this year’s $16.05 million assessment.
In doing so, the council also approved the formula that determines how Amherst, Pelham, Shutesbury and Leverett divvy up the assessments. In March, elected officials in the towns met and agreed to the new assessment method that combines a town’s ability to pay and its enrollment to allocate costs. Known as Option A, or the 50 percent minimum contribution method, it revises the state’s statutory method for assessments. The statutory formula factors in income and property values and was created under the Education Reform Act of the 1990s.
The four towns are responsible for covering $20.6 million of the $32.09 million budget, with the remainder of the funding coming from state aid and other sources.
That $32.09 million budget is $274,828, or .86 percent higher, than the current year’s $31.82 million budget, and preserves all programs and staffing levels.
Amherst Finance Committee Chairman Andrew Steinberg said his committee’s vote will allow Superintendent Michael Morris and Sean Mangano, the schools’ finance chief, to bring this statement to the Shutesbury Town Meeting, which begins at 9 a.m. Saturday, as well as the Pelham Town Meeting on May 11.
All four towns must adopt the revised formula for it to go into effect. After Amherst Town Council approved the formula and the assessment, Leverett Town Meeting did likewise on April 27.
But the formula requires Shutesbury to pay significantly more money than it would under the statutory method. Though the $1.78 million assessment for Shutesbury is actually a decrease of $320 from the current year, the statutory method would mean a $1.46 million assessment, or $311,797 less.
Lacy said the statutory method aims to help the towns with the least financial resources and, based on Department of Elementary and Secondary Education statistics, nearly three-quarters of districts across Massachusetts use it.
Should Shutesbury voters reject the revised formula and revert to the statutory method, Amherst would see an increase in its assessment of $205,558, from $16.45 million to $16.65 million, an additional 1.2 percent jump beyond the 2.5 percent increase.
Such a change would also impact Leverett, with its $12,050 increase in the assessment from fiscal year 2019 going up by another $83,048, from $1.47 million to $1.55 million, and Pelham’s assessment rising by $22,844 from $911,947 to $934,791, though that would still be a decrease from this year’s $947,186 assessment.
Though Amherst is taking a stand for the revised formula, Lacy disputes that decisions made in Shutesbury would cause a reduced regional budget or the need for programmatic cuts.
“That assumes voters and parents in Leverett, Pelham and Amherst don’t care for their children in the same way we care for our children in Shutesbury,” Lacy said.
Lacy also observes that town and school officials will have nearly two months following any decisions to develop a plan that is acceptable to all four towns.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
