NORTHFIELD — For the second time, Pioneer Valley Regional School Committee has approved a budget proposal for next academic year that is 2.5 percent higher than this year.
The committee this week had to revote the spending plan to work around potential conflict of interest issues raised by the procedure followed Feb. 11.
The committee met for a special meeting Wednesday night to revisit the 2017 school year budget.
At last month’s meeting, the committee voted to raise the district’s proposed spending 2.5 percent, but according to the school district’s attorney, Russell Dupere, all committee members who have a conflict of interest with a specific budgetary line item must be absent from the room to give the remaining members an opportunity to discuss and vote on the specific line item void of any bias from the possibly affected party.
“The process you need to use is that the committee member would ideally leave the room and the rest of the committee votes the line item that only applies to that committee member,” Dupere said and cited an example.
“Once you are done with that process, you can vote on the overall budget,” he added. “The idea behind that is so it can eliminate all the conflicts.”
Once the necessary employees each returned from their momentary absence, all 12 committee members sat once again at the table and compared two proposals from Superintendent Ruth Miller: a 1.57 percent increase and a 2.5 percent increase. Once Miller was made aware of last month’s invalid vote, she met with the principals and the directors throughout the district who collaborated with each other to create a budget proposal for both a 1.57 and a 2.5 percent increase, which was closely evaluated by the committee.
“They had to fill out a booklet with every line item justifying what that line item was and why. We went through every one of them,” Miller said. “We worked together. They came up with some ideas of what to cut. …They weren’t happy about it, which I get, but they were the ones who made the decision.”
The 1.57 percent proposal would have significantly decreased funding for school subject supplies and cut seven classroom instructional assistants, while special education aids were not threatened. The 2.5 percent increase cuts only half of the paraprofessional hours.
The vote to increase the budget by 2.5 percent passed 8 to 4 Wednesday night. But it’s not a done deal yet.
The $14 million budget must be approved by three of the four member towns. If two towns approve lower amounts, the higher of those is used to calculate a new budget. Town assessments are then adjusted to reflect state-set percentages. If a lower budget is approved by towns, the School Committee may come up with another budget proposal to bring to towns for approval. Failing that, the School Committee may ask the state to set the district budget.
“I really, really encourage all of us that live in the district to support this budget,” Committee Chairwoman Patricia Shearer said at the conclusion of this week’s meeting. “I encourage you and all your friends, relatives and neighbors to get out to the town meeting.”