TURNERS FALLS — The Gill-Montague Regional School Committee received good news this week: unforeseen additional funding for next school year.
Montague has received last-minute tax information that means it can allocate $151,000 more to education.
Superintendent Michael Sullivan and members of the School Committee presented the budget and discussed the new information with the town’s finance committee this week. The School Committee will vote to finalize the district’s budget at its next meeting. The final budget, which had been set at about $21.4 million, will now include the additional funding.
Town Accountant Carolyn Olsen called Sullivan when she received news that the tax revenue would be changing.
“They’re very transparent with us, which is great,” Sullivan said.
News of the extra money allows the district to walk back some budget cuts planned as recently as Tuesday.
Sullivan is now suggesting a decrease in use of the district’s surplus fund, adding back the secondary-level educator as well as other items that were going to be cut in the initial budget. Montague Selectboard Chairman Richard Kuklewicz advocated for funding a school resource officer, something some people in the town expressed interest in, but the school could not initially fund.
Others on the Finance Committee advocated for an additional $10,000 that is needed for textbooks, something that was also suggested by School Committee member Christina Postera.
Olsen said the town received letters on Tuesday from Eversource and National Grid that said the tax revenues in the town would go up, which triggered an increase in the town’s affordability assessment, which is the calculation that the town uses to determine how much money can go toward the regional school district. Typically Gill matches that affordability assessment based on its share of the enrollment. The school district bases its budget off that calculation.
Finance Committee Chairman John Hanold took a straw poll of the committee to help Sullivan gauge public support for the items they may be adding back in. Most of the members believed it was the School Committee and the district that best knew where the money should go.
The Finance Committee plans to generate and vote on an official affordability assessment, with the new revenue, at its next meeting. That number will then go on to the School Committee ahead of its next meeting, where it will vote on the final budget and decide which cuts to restore.
Hanold said the job of the Finance Committee and the town is to be transparent with the district and give it as much information as possible.
“This is your budget. You’re the ones in control,” Hanold said.
Reach Miranda Davis at
413-772-0261, ext. 280
or mdavis@recorder.com.