GREENFIELD — The School Committee plans to present the mayor with a fiscal year 2022 budget that is a $753,931 or 3.83 percent increase over this year.
The committee held a special meeting Monday evening to talk about everything from the budget, to sports and in-person learning, to the new superintendent search.
Dr. Judith Houle, who is serving as interim superintendent until the School Committee hires a new one, presented the budget a week and a half after she joined the school district and Jordana Harper left. She said a school district’s budget should speak to its vision and the work it needs to do, and that’s what the $20,425,011 budget does — the actual budget is $22,776,940, but the district plans to use $2,351,929 in grants to offset it.
City Council approved the mayor’s budget of $19,671,080 this year and the mayor has asked that all departments present a level-services budget for fiscal year 2022, which means she expects some increases to cover inflation, but does not want huge increases.
Mayor Roxann Wedegartner, who is a School Committee member, did not attend Monday’s special meeting.
“We have to remember why we’re here,” Houle said. “It’s for the students. The budget speaks to the goals and beliefs of the district” — that every student succeed, every family feels welcome, every educator is essential and the district provides a safe learning environment, supports community engagement and student growth, provides a high-quality education and pays attention to the impact it has on students.
She said as she looked at the budget, she considered what the district needs, and now it’s time to take action and provide it with the resources. Once the budget is voted, she said the district will manage the money to make sure it is spent wisely, and will do research to find how to better use resources.
“The budget is a snapshot in time,” Houle said. “Things will get moved around. Things change.”
On the expense side is everything from how best to provide for students’ health and well-being; special education; operations like transportation and technology; and incremental increases to mandatory expenses like insurance and negotiated salary increases.
Houle said each school has requested some additional positions for next year, so they need increases in their individual budgets: The Discovery School at Four Corners, $78,000; Federal Street Elementary, $88,000; Newton Elementary School, $340,000; Greenfield Middle School, 393,000; and Greenfield High School, $451,000 ($255,000 in the budget and $196,000 in grants).
Additional positions include art, music and technology teachers, as well as special education, reading, a librarian, and a lunch and recess monitor. The middle and high schools would also like to restore their associate and assistant principals, respectively.
Greenfield School Department Business Manager Andy Paquette said he worked with the School Committee’s Budget Subcommittee to come up with a reasonable budget for fiscal year 2022. He said the subcommittee members considered “worst-case scenarios.”
School Committee member Susan Hollins reminded everyone that there are contractual obligations that must be met and those account for about 1.5 percent of the increase the schools are asking for from the city this year.
“There’s a certain percentage of the increase we can’t do anything about,” she said.
Everyone agreed that art, music and technology are very important to students and their overall education.
Paquette said he will continue to work on the budget and bring breakdowns before the next meeting on March 10. Those breakdowns will include which positions would be restored as opposed to which are new.
Other items that were added to the budget include supplies, reading and writing resources, workbooks, textbooks, library periodicals and technology upgrades — items that can’t be covered by grants.
Paquette said there is also an increase to transportation costs. This year, the Greenfield School Department received $720,027 for transportation. It is asking for $1,305,033, an increase of $584,976. He said he will also provide more information and a better explanation about transportation at the next meeting.
“We need to keep track of what we need,” School Committee Chair Amy Proietti said. “We want to provide a quality education.”
She said the School Committee did the same last year — presented the city with what it felt it needed to provide a quality education, and let the mayor and City Council help make decisions that were most realistic.
“I think we need to provide level services to FY2020,” Houle said. “FY2021 was an anomaly.”
She and Paquette said the district will also receive federal support and those funds will be factored into the budget.
“We have to be careful when using grants,” Paquette said. “If we use a grant for a position or program and it’s a success but we lose the grant, that could pose a problem in the future.”
Reach Anita Fritz at 413-772-9591 or afritz@recorder.com.