AMHERST — Anticipated health insurance increases and cost-of-living adjustments for teachers and staff are driving what could be as much as a $2.06 million deficit in the fiscal year 2027 budget for Amherst’s elementary schools.
In an early look, a $31.09 million spending plan was presented to the Amherst School Committee last week by Executive Director of Finance and Operations Shannon Bernacchia that would allow the district to maintain current services beginning next fall.
Those services will be at the new Amethyst Brook Elementary School and the established Crocker Farm Elementary School, as well as the newly created Chestnut Street Academy for sixth graders at the Amherst Regional Middle School.
Significant adjustments will need to be made to meet the financial guidelines set by the Town Council, which calls for a 3.5% increase in town, school and library budgets.
“This is an eye-popping deficit, very, very distressing,” said committee member Sarah Marshall. “And we’re really going to be having some really hard discussions in the coming months.”
The budget plan is up $2.77 million, or 9.8%, over this year’s $28.32 million budget. Bernacchia said the budget, though, can really only go up by 2.5%, to $29.03 million, a $712,019 increase.
While the schools may be looking at more than $2 million in cuts, Bernacchia cautioned that the budget needs more “heavy refinement” because the exact staffing needs at each building are still to be determined.
“There’s a lot of work to be done within our salary section… that we need to do more refinement,” Bernacchia said
Salaries alone are projected to go up $1.4 million, a 7.7%increase, to $20.08 million.
As significant, though, is the health insurance increase of around $1 million.
“It is astronomical,” Bernacchia said. “Even a 2.5 percent increase (in the budget) doesn’t cover the insurance increase alone.”
Bernacchia provided some details about the elementary schools, with 1,043 students currently enrolled at Crocker Farm, Wildwood and Fort River schools.
The district is also benefiting from school choice, with 96 students coming in, with 27 from Belchertown and 15 apiece from Hadley and South Hadley, and 65 students departing, with 26 of these going to Pelham and 23 to Hadley.
The budget has $750,000 from school choice revenues applied, $246,000 in so-called “circuit breaker” for expenses related to special education, a $185,000 contribution from the University of Massachusetts and a $125,000 donation from Amherst College.
One cost saving in the budget is a $218,017 reduction in utilities due to the consolidation of schools and the new school, but this is offset by a $241,662 increase in special education.
As part of the budget planning, Bernacchia also presented a capital plan that she said will include improvements at Crocker Farm, the 1960s-era building, which has been renovated.
“We are not going to have students come into the new school and feel like Crocker Farm was left out,” Bernacchia said. School officials are putting together a facilities plan for work that needs to be done and will be submitting that before the new year.
Some of the work will be done using funding already approved, such as $175,000 for playground design and other upgrades that could be done over the summer to address safety concerns on the current playgrounds.