SOUTH DEERFIELD — In advance of a March 1 public hearing, Frontier Regional School District administrators presented a second draft of the proposed fiscal year 2023 budget to the School Committee Tuesday night.
Director of Business Administration Shelley Poreda led the discussion as the district laid out a total FY23 budget of more than $12.2 million, a $430,039 or 3.64% increase from the previous year. Poreda noted the increases are “hovering right around where our typical numbers fall.”
“There’s a lot of factors that are outside of our control,” she said, which includes retirement assessments, special education transportation costs and sick time buyback. “We had to be a little creative to get a number that is more palatable for our towns.”
Of the four towns, Whately saw the greatest budget increase from $916,815 to $1,048,461, which is a 14.4% increase. Poreda noted that Whately’s increased budget is not out of the ordinary, as each year typically sees one town with a drastic increase due to enrollment and other elements of the budget process.
“We have fluctuations like this every year. Sunderland saw it last year,” she said. “Every year it is recalculated.”
William Smith, the School Committee’s longest-serving member and a Whately representative, said his town is fine with being given “the prize” of the highest town assessment for the upcoming fiscal year.
“We’ll deal with it in Whately,” he said. “All four of us (the Budget Subcommittee members), we’re really comfortable with that.”
The draft presented Tuesday night is a revised version as the district tries to present the most economical budget possible. While there is still time before the public hearing, Poreda said any future changes will be minor as the budget is getting tight.
“There are a lot of pieces that we couldn’t just wash away,” she said. “There’s not a lot of wiggle room for us to continue to move down. … It’s probably still a little bit higher than some are comfortable with.”
The original draft sought to add a couple new positions, including another building monitor and an English teacher, but the district will try to shuffle operations internally to create the positions instead.
The School Committee did not vote on the budget at Tuesday’s meeting as members will take time to digest the information and take public comment at the March 1 hearing, which is currently set to be hosted via Zoom.
“You can always lower the budget after the hearing,” commented Superintendent Darius Modestow. “If we hear back from the towns that they want us to consider something, we can have that discussion then.”
In other business, the School Committee approved undertaking several capital improvement plans for the upcoming year.
Modestow presented the installation of air conditioning on the third floor of Frontier, design planning for the tennis courts and the hiring of an architectural firm to study the roof’s condition, along with financing the replacement of the cafeteria’s walk-in refrigerator.
The installation of air conditioning in 11 third-floor classrooms will help remediate oppressive temperatures that often occur in June and August. The project amounts to $90,000, with $50,000 coming from the school’s reserves and the remaining amount funded by School Choice money.
Both the tennis court design plans and roof study are projected to cost $20,000 and will be covered using School Choice funding. The district will also ask residents at the four annual Town Meetings to allocate $75,000 for the walk-in refrigerator and the underlying concrete.