NORTHFIELD — Budget adjustments to account for the closure of Leyden’s Pearl Rhodes Elementary School will likely be the main news from two Pioneer Valley Regional School subcommittee meetings Thursday night.
Along with the Budget Subcommittee’s meeting at 7 p.m., there will be a meeting of a subcommittee for reviewing a new regional agreement document at 5:30, both at the middle-high school in Northfield.
Although the schools’ proposed budget for the 2019-2020 school year has to be changed to account for the closure of Pearl Rhodes, Budget Subcommittee Chairman Mike Townsley said the change will likely be relatively small.
Currently the district is requesting a 1.65-percent increase in the towns’ payments over this year’s budget. Townsley expects the increase to be smaller once the budget is revised, but added that the zero-percent increase requested by town officials was unrealistic.
Even without the expected decrease, Townsley said that townspeople would likely support the currently proposed budget in their spring town meetings.
“The 1.65 is a realistic number at this point,” Townsley said. “I don’t see any problem with that budget passing.”
The other topic for Thursday night, the new regional agreement, is apparently less pressing. School Committee members doubt there will be enough time for the new regional agreement to be approved in the spring town meetings; but approval through special town meetings is possible, said School Committee Vice-Chairwoman Pat Shearer, who is temporarily acting as chair since Sue O’Reilly-McRae stepped aside from the position following the vote to close Pearl Rhodes last week.
The new agreement was drafted by the HEART Committee (Honest Education and Retaining Trust), a group set up by the Selectboards of the Pioneer district towns to assist the School Committee with long-term problems.
The main additions in the new agreement are new rules for School Committee members, a mechanism for a town to leave the district and a detailed procedure for closing schools.