WARWICK — The Pioneer Valley Regional School Committee decided to reach out to its four district towns for help erasing the district’s school lunch deficit, which Assistant Superintendent Gail Healy said reached $249,000 at the end of July.
The committee voted unanimously at a Thursday meeting in Warwick Community School to have Superintendent Ruth Miller send a letter to town officials in Bernardston, Northfield, Warwick and Leyden, asking them to allot money at their spring town meetings.
The committee agreed each town would be responsible for paying a percentage of the debt based on the rates outlined in the regional agreement, which also governs the district’s annual operating assessments to each town. Through the agreement, Northfield and Bernardston pay the lion’s share as they’re the towns with the most students.
“It’ll be done at different times depending on their budgets and their ability to do it,” Miller said following the meeting.
Through the regional agreement, the share of operating costs is calculated by dividing a town’s average number of students in all grades over the past five fiscal years by the average total enrollment from the four towns over the same years, and then multiplying that fraction by total operating costs. For example, this fiscal year’s assessments saw Bernardston paying 34.63 percent, Leyden paying 6.03 percent, Northfield paying 49.81 percent, and Warwick paying 9.52 percent of the approximately $8.8 million assessment total.
Should paying off the debt go before voters at April and May annual town meetings, any money needing to be raised through taxation would affect the FY19 tax rate.
Bernardston Selectman Robert Raymond brought up the idea of paying off the deficit through the 2018 town meetings at Tuesday’s budget subcommittee meeting, though not for the first time.
“You need to bring the lunch deficit to the towns,” Raymond said Tuesday. “You cannot pay it. Admit it!”
“You’re in a bad way,” agreed fellow Bernardston Selectman Brian Keir. “You’ve gotta do something different.”
Miller said during Thursday’s meeting she’s hopeful the deficit has plateaued. However Healy, who is also the district’s food service director, said that due to “treasurer and technological glitches” that prevented the lunch report from being completed last month, she doesn’t currently have data to be sure the deficit hasn’t worsened.
Healy oversaw a reconfiguration of the food service system before the current school year. Primarily through staff reductions and shifting the roles of remaining employees, Healy anticipated the system would save the district $46,248 in its first year, and a total of $77,076 in two years.
Reach Shelby Ashline at: sashline@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 257.