In a state that prides itself on its educational prowess, Massachusetts school districts across the commonwealth are facing a crisis of ability to adequately fund their schools. Hampshire County has proved to be no exception.

In Northampton, the school district faces the prospect of additional cuts to level-services funding for the 2026 fiscal year following a bitter, contentious budget fight last year that led to cuts and public backlash. Nearby Amherst faces a similar situation, with the Amherst-Pelham Regional School District requiring a hefty $2.62 million increase to maintain existing staff and programs. And Belchertown school officials have mulled possibly closing of one of its schools in order to fund the district.

There are numerous factors behind the budget gaps that plague these districts: loss of federal relief funds provided during the COVID-19 pandemic, contractually obligated staff salary increases, and higher demand for special education services for students, to name just a few.

“Even though our enrollment has been declining, the needs of our students have been escalating in terms of providing additional special educational programming, providing multilingual services and so on,” Northampton Public School District Superintendent Portia Bonner said in an interview. “There are other factors that play in operating budgets for school districts.” For instance, Northampton must pay tuition for charter school students, she noted, “which siphons off quite a bit of money.”

Bonner also said that aftershocks from the pandemic continue to reverberate in terms of the effect its had on students’ mental health, contributing to the increase in special education costs.

“We’re seeing an increased amount of students who are being recommended for special education services. We’re seeing an increased amount of need of students who are showing social emotional stressors,” Bonner said. “A general concern is that not only are they academically behind, but we’re also seeing that in terms of their reading success and in other areas, just even socialization areas. So we have our work cut out.”

One factor behind the budget gaps particularly emphasized by districts is the financial aid provided to schools by the state, known as Chapter 70, which districts say isn’t enough to cover inflation, let alone the additional costs of providing level services.

In Amherst, Chapter 70 aid is going up only 1.89%, or $185,509, from $9.79 million to $9.98 million this year, based on Gov. Maura Healey’s budget.

“Our revenue is severely lagging behind our expenses,” interim School Finance Director Shannon Bernacchia told the Regional School Committee in February. Even adding in other revenues, such as transportation and charter reimbursements, revenue is up only 2.51%, or $302,509, from $12.08 million to $12.38 million this year, according to Bernacchia.

Northampton is projected to receive $8.4 million in Chapter 70 funds next fiscal year, a 2.37% increase from the current year. In Belchertown, Chapter 70 aid makes up roughly half of the district’s entire budget, with increases to aid hovering below 2%.

The method used to determine how much Chapter 70 aid a district receives relies on a complex formula that depends primarily on student enrollment. The funding formula was amended in 2019 under the Student Opportunity Act to provide additional funding based on the number of students with additional needs, such as low-income background and those speaking English as a second language.

One problem still persists with the Chapter 70 formula, however, and that is the issue of declining enrollment for many districts. When enrollment declines, schools are put in a state of what is known as “hold harmless,” where the state does not decrease aid but holds the increase to the minimum amount allowable.

State Sen. Jo Comerford, who represents Northampton and Amherst and chairs the Joint Committee on Higher Education in the State House, didn’t mince words when it came to how the Chapter 70 formula adversely affects communities in the Pioneer Valley.

“Every district is in crisis out here,” Comerford said in an interview. “There is no good news for education funding in western Massachusetts.”

Comerford told the Gazette that the issue of updating the Chapter 70 formula was “at the top of the pile” for her among all other issues.

“You have to be able to see the current pain and significant tension in all of these districts statewide, and we have to have an answer for them,” Comerford said. “There has to be a solution that can be a win-win.”

Though both Senate President Karen Spilka and Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr have called for changes to Chapter 70, it remains to be seen how long it might take any meaningful reform to pass in the notoriously slow-moving Legislature. But Healey is seeking to increase the minimum aid amount to school districts from $30 to $75 per student in her coming fiscal state budget.

Beyond waiting for changes to financial aid at the state level, another way for cities and towns to try to stave off cuts would be to pass a referendum on a Proposition 2½ override, which would allow towns to raise property taxes beyond the statutory 2.5% cap. In Northampton, the city has passed several overrides in previous years to support the district, all of which passed overwhelmingly.

But a successful override seems less likely in Belchertown, where voters rejected a Prop 2½ measure last year for a new Jabish Brook Middle School building by over 70%. Facing a $2.1 million revenue shortfall for providing level services in the schools, the town instead may resort to closing Cold Spring School, which hosts pre-K and kindergarten students and would result in redistributing the grades among the remaining schools.

The closure of Cold Spring, and older building with asbestos issues and maintenance needs, would save the town approximately $500,000. But school officials told the town Select Board during a meeting on March 17 the closure would be premature and disruptive.

“Closing Cold Spring has a significant impact on our elementary population,” said School Committee Vice Chair Ruby Bansal during the meeting. “Our class sizes will increase above our class size policy and above what is recommended.”

Heidi Gutekenst, who chairs the Belchertown School Committee, said at the meeting that she ideally wanted to wait another two to three years to close the school, when the kindergarten class size drops lower, so that it wouldn’t impact classroom sizes.

“I can’t make it happen any faster than I can make it happen,” Gutekenst said. “Yes, the class size is lowering, but we can’t say to 100 kids, ‘Hey, don’t come here next year for kindergarten because we want to close the school.’”

Beyond the state, uncertainty also remains at the federal level, with a recent executive order by President Donald Trump to dismantle the Department of Education leaving many uneasy.

Bonner said that for Northampton Public Schools, which receives around $1.7 million in federal grants, the district was watching for changes to federal funding and factoring it into potential risks for future school budgets, but also that such funding remained secure for now.

“Right now, I am feeling that this is something that may not necessarily affect us this year,” Bonner said. “Who knows what will come? But we have to keep it in mind that this may potentially happen.”