WESTHAMPTON — Hampshire Regional High School’s $19.8 million budget for the upcoming school year is now official, after each member town approved its share of dues at town meetings this spring. The budget cuts $280,000 in services, including two full-time positions.
The budget represents a roughly $1.5 million jump from last year’s spending of $18.2 million, and will still require other cuts, including an administrative assistant and a wellness teacher.
Additionally, all late buses will be eliminated, families will have to pay for advanced placement (AP) exams, athletic fees will increase and money for supplies will decrease. Stipends will be eliminated for department heads as well.
HRHS Principal Lauren Hotz said impacts will be felt by families having to pay new expenses that were previously cost-free, and in a decrease of services around the school. However, Hotz feels the budget turned out as good as it could have been.
“I am acutely aware that we are in a much more fortunate situation than other schools with this budget,” Hotz said in an interview this week.
The budget was approved by the Hampshire Regional School Committee in March, pending approval from each of its members — Southampton, Williamsburg, Westhampton, Chesterfield and Goshen. All towns approved their appropriations they must pay to the district’s central office. In line with state guidance, only four member towns in the district need to approve their assessments at town meetings each year for the budget to become final.
Chesterfield’s assessment will go up the most, at 28.5%, followed by Williamsburg at 11%, Southampton at 5.8% and Westhampton at 4%. Goshen’s assessment will not increase.
The district faced a $2 million budget shortfall for fiscal 2027 driven by rising costs due to inflation, particularly health insurance. In February, Superintendent Vito Perrone presented a budget for the first time and Hampshire Regional School Committee members approved a preliminary $19.7 million budget, $400,000 short of level services.
At the committee’s following meeting in March, members raised that budget by $175,000, to help retain a music teacher and student adjustment counselor, that would have otherwise been cut. Efforts to increase the budget were led by representatives from Williamsburg, who said they were not facing a deficit in their own municipal budget.
“As a regional committee we are tied to each other and we are responsible to each other, and when people do make detrimental decisions about funding our education, it impacts all of us,” Williamsburg representative Sarah Crowther said at the committee’s March 16 meeting. “That’s not an arrogant statement, that is fact. And in Williamsburg we do have the money to do level services.”
Other town representatives were reluctant, however, noting at the meeting that the rising costs of inflation and health insurance were not only affecting HRHS, but also their municipal budgets. Many expressed worry that if they raised the high school budget, less money would go toward their elementary schools and town operations.
“I’m speaking tonight to request that the School Committee agree to the proposed budget and not restore additional funding for more services,” Southampton School Committee member at the time, Margaret Larson, said at the March 16 meeting. “This request is to both preserve the services within the town of Southampton and to protect Hampshire Regional from dire problems in the future. Southampton is facing an unprecedented budget shortfall.”
Southampton, which is the largest town in the district, lost five full-time employees from the Norris Elementary School last year along with numerous hour reductions for staff members after a failed override vote. This year, they were able to restore many of the cuts with the passage of a $1.9 million Proposition 2½ override.
Westhampton was not as successful, having to cut more than $125,000 to its elementary school budget this year, after two separate overrides failed. Williamsburg, Chesterfield and Goshen did not attempt overrides this year.
While it was a challenging budget year, Hotz said she was proud to have seen the student and community involvement through the process.
“I’ve only been principal for five years but I haven’t seen students engaged in that way,” Hotz said. “I heard kids advocating for both sports and academic programs so I think it prompted a lot of engagement that we haven’t seen before.”
