GREENFIELD — The School Committee Wednesday night approved sending a proposed $18,180,157 budget for the next school year to the Town Council.
The approved budget represent an increase of $60,000 presented to the committee by members of the Budget and Finance Subcommittee last month.
That money will be used to expand volunteer outreach efforts district-wide and reading literacy support at the high school.
The budget still includes no cuts to staff members, though two will leave their current positions to move into new positions under the student services department. The positions they held will be eliminated, because they’re duplicative and unneeded, administrators said.
The budget would be a 3.39 percent increase over this year, most of which is due to increasing staff and transportation costs.
“There are intractable increases, things we can do nothing about,” said member Susan Hollins, who is also the former superintendent. “The teacher contracts are almost 2 percent of this year’s budget, and the transportation that we can’t do anything about is almost another 1 percent. So that’s an intractable increase of 3 percent without anything changing for the students.”
The rest is attributable to new positions at each school and in the student services department. About half of the total new positions requested by the school principals were not included.
Superintendent Jordana Harper noted in her presentation that the number of students coming to Greenfield’s schools through the School Choice program has increased, while those leaving in that fashion have decreased, which she said shows the department’s programming is proving attractive to local families.
Town Council is expected to review the budget on March 23.
You can reach Tom Relihan at:
trelihan@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 264
On Twitter, follow @RecorderTom