NORTHFIELD — Insisting there is nothing left to cut from the school budget, the Pioneer Valley Regional School Committee voted on Tuesday to borrow money and spend at a deficit through the coming year while it restructures its spending to be sustainable in the long term.
“We’re destroying ourselves. We’re not going to get students coming in here if we make more cuts,” said School Committee member Sharon Fontaine. “I think it’s ridiculous to think we can cut more money out of this budget. I don’t want to get into debt either, but it’s feeling like that’s the only lifeline we’ve got.”
The decision to spend at a deficit and borrow money rather than make further cuts comes after several major cuts were announced at the previous meeting on June 12. These most notable cuts included several teacher layoffs and reductions to elementary school special classes.
The committee debated asking the towns for more money, but decided against doing so after Leyden Selectman Jeff Neipp said it would be “ludicrous” to ask the district’s four member towns to hold special town meetings for appropriating the money in time for the start of the school year in September.
Similarly, closing either Leyden’s Pearl Rhodes Elementary School or Warwick Community School has been ruled out, as doing so would require a change to the district agreement which would have to be approved by at least three of the four towns in a special town meetings.
“We can’t keep spending at this level. We know that,” said School Committee member Sue O’Reilly-McRae. “So we make a long-term investment to buy this time to keep us going.
“We don’t make draconian cuts to our district that continue to spiral us down so that we have less enrollment and less engagement and less faith in us as a district,” she said. “That gives us the year. … It gives us time for everyone to come to terms with, do we need to close a school? How many administrators can we support? Do we have to restructure in a dramatic way?”