NORTHFIELD — A recent study predicts that Pioneer Valley Regional School District’s deficit could climb to as high as $3.1 million over the next five years if the district does nothing, and it may take closing two of its district schools to help correct the problem.
Those closures, along with more restructuring will be necessary to avoid a financial shortfall that would dwarf the one discovered this earlier year, according to new data from the HEART Committee (Honest Education and Retaining Trust).
The data comes from a study on the financial sustainability of the Pioneer district, the Gill-Montague Regional School District and the Franklin County Technical School which had been going on since August. A public forum with the HEART Committee and its consultants will be held Dec. 5 at the Pioneer Valley Regional School cafeteria at 6:30 p.m.
The results of the study, which were discussed at a HEART Committee meeting on Monday (Nov. 19), provide a hypothetical “do nothing” scenario that starts with the Pioneer district’s budget for the current fiscal year and projects it through 2023, accounting for expected cost increases, changes in state aid and trends in enrollment.
In the best-case “do nothing” scenario, the district would have a shortfall of about $380,000 next year. By 2023 it would be about $3.1 million. This scenario assumes that the district’s current deficit is $600,000, which is roughly what district Finance Director Tanya Gaylord estimates it to be.
In a worst-case scenario, the current deficit is assumed to be $2 million, which is the maximum amount that the district is allowed to borrow under a new law written specifically to help the Pioneer Valley Regional School District through its financial deficit. In that case, the shortfall by 2023 would be about $3.8 million.
“When I saw those numbers I felt like I’d been sucker punched in the gut,” said School Committee Chair Sue O’Reilly-McRae, who is also on the HEART Committee.
The study includes data going back to 1993 on state-mandated spending for public education vis-a-vis state aid. The graph shows state aid leveling off around 2000, while the state’s requirements for education spending continued to increase — albeit much more slowly than they did in the ‘90s, when state funding and local spending requirements were likewise ramping up.
Through the ‘90s, Pioneer’s local spending hovered slightly above the state’s requirements, apparently increasing at roughly the same rate. Around 2000, Pioneer’s spending began to outpace the increases in the state’s requirements.
Now, Pioneer spends 64.7 percent more on education than the state requires. In comparison, the average for local education spending is 24 percent more than the state requires.
“Chapter 70 (state aid) is not going to be the cavalry coming down the road,” said Mark Abrahams, one of the consultants who conducted the study.
Not unrelated, the consultants were also asked to investigate the feasibility of closing Warwick Community School and Leyden’s Pearl Rhodes Elementary School.
Without their own elementary schools, Warwick’s elementary school students would be sent to Northfield, and Leyden’s would go to Bernardston. The buildings would be able to accommodate the extra students and the extra buses, the study concludes.
Closing Pearl Rhodes would save the district at least $125,817 a year in building operation costs, and as much as $329,690 on top of that in staffing — although actual savings in salaries would be lower than that, as some staff would be transferred to other district schools. Closing Warwick Community School would save at least $244,153 in building operation costs, and as much as $426,226 more in salaries.
For the most part class sizes would not increase beyond recommended limits if the smaller towns’ elementary school students were sent to Bernardston and Northfield instead. The biggest stretch, according to the study, would be Bernardston’s fifth grade, which would have 29 students, compared to the building’s recommended classroom capacity of 25 students. At Northfield Elementary School there are two currently unused classrooms.
At Pearl Rhodes, each classroom holds two grades. The closest the school has come in the past five years to its recommended classroom capacity of 20 students was in the 2015-2016 year, when there was an unusually large preschool class of 10 students in the same room as six kindergarteners. Otherwise, classrooms have stayed below 14 students across both grades. The school has 33 students this year.
Leyden’s fifth- and sixth-grade students were sent to Bernardston Elementary School this year, which the study notes has worked well. It also points out that single-grade curricula and larger peer groups are considered to be more optimal for social and emotional development. The two schools already share a principal.
Class sizes at Warwick Community School are generally larger, although the school also has two grade levels per room. Warwick’s school also draws many more out-of-town students than Leyden’s does, with 27 of the school’s 58 students this year from out of town.
The school choice students don’t make the school any more economically efficient though. Per-student spending at Pearl Rhodes is almost $19,000 a year. At Warwick it’s about $17,000 a year — possibly higher, Warwick Town Coordinator and School Committee member David Young has said, since income from school choice students does not cover the costs of those students.
The HEART Committee and the consultants who conducted the study will be available at the Dec. 5 forum. They will discuss various options and recommendations for school closures, as well as other cost-saving measures they have investigated, like combining administrative services with neighboring districts.
Contact Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-772-0261 ex 261.