HAWLEY — All articles on the Annual Town Meeting warrant were approved this week, with the exception of the budgets for the Hawlemont and Mohawk Trail regional school districts.
“It wasn’t your classic rejection of a school budget,” said Selectboard member Hussain Hamdan.
The two school committees and district leadership agreed Monday that the Hawlemont and Mohawk budgets for fiscal year 2021, which were approved in March, are no longer appropriate when considering the potential loss of revenue related to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Hamdan, who is also a member of the Hawlemont School Committee.
Hawley’s contributions to the proposed budgets for Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont regional school districts were set to be $184,202 and $284,954, respectively.
“If the School Committee would have supported this budget, it still would have been voted down,” Hamdan said. “It was completely unrealistic after the budget situation we were in.”
For now, the district will run on a one-twelfth budget, a month-by-month budget based on the current fiscal year’s figures, he explained.
“The School Committee will compose a budget and it will bring it to the town once the School Committee knows what the school district is getting for state aid,” he said.
The $122,500 budget for Franklin County Technical School, however, was approved by Annual Town Meeting voters, as that budget is determined based on tuition.
Voters also passed a town operating budget of roughly $539,974 with little discussion.
“The town operating budget also had reductions across the board in anticipation of a loss of state aid,” he said.
In addition to a number of regular town business articles on the 15-article warrant, voters were also asked to approve appropriating $3,000 for improvements to the Hawley Fire Station.
Hamdan explained that that article was rephrased on the floor to clarify that the money would be transferred from an existing stabilization fund, not the tax base.
“That (article) has to do with replacing some windows at the East Hawley station, which are in poor shape,” Hamdan said.
The meeting, which lasted roughly 45 minutes for the 21 registered voters who were present, took place in the parking lot of the Hawley Town Office.
“The Selectboard chose to keep anything that was going to be controversial or long discussion-generating off the warrant … because we did not want to have a long meeting,” Hamdan said.
Overall, the meeting went “very well,” he said.
“Everybody was respectful of the precautions we put in place,” Hamdan said. “And we had a good turnout by Hawley standards.”
Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 263. Twitter: @MaryEByrne