WHATELY — Ahead of June’s Annual Town Meeting, the Selectboard and Finance Committee discussed budget requests that will likely come at a higher price tag this year.
South County Senior Center
South County Senior Center Director Jennifer Ferrara kicked Wednesday’s meeting off with a $80,840 request for Whately’s share of the Senior Center’s operating budget. The ask marks a $27,624 increase from the request that came before voters at last year’s Annual Town Meeting as the Senior Center Board of Oversight considers renting a new space.
After weighing several options, the board is considering the 12,150-square-foot office building owned by Delta Sand and Gravel Inc. According to Ferrara, the rent should cost approximately $168,000 annually, with renovation expenses folded into this amount. Ferrara told the Selectboard and Finance Committee that the numbers are based on information sessions with the owner, and a lease has not yet been signed.
Finance Committee Vice Chair Jerry Lemon raised concerns with the size of the building’s elevator, which is 48 by 51 inches. In response, Ferrara said that although state law requires an elevator cab to be a minimum 54 by 68 inches, the regulation includes an exception for elevators in existing buildings that are at least 48 by 48 inches.
“In a perfect world, we’d have an ADA-compliant elevator that could carry many people. We don’t get to have that because that would be $15 million and our towns can’t really afford a million-dollar payment a year,” said Whately Selectboard Chair Joyce Palmer-Fortune, who also serves on the Board of Oversight.
Palmer-Fortune stressed that the current Senior Center at 22 Amherst Road lacks the proper space and features to serve its approximately 700 members.
“There’s got to be something in between perfect and what we have now that can help us grow,” Palmer-Fortune said.
Frontier Regional, Whately Elementary schools
Superintendent Darius Modestow and Director of Business Administration Shelley Poreda of the Frontier Regional and Union 38 school districts presented Whately’s school budget assessments.
Although the budget has grown by an average of 2.67% over the past seven years, the first draft included an atypical 6.95% increase of $923,460.
After budgeting for an initial 18% increase in health care costs heading into fiscal year 2026, the Frontier Regional School District and other members of the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust faced another 20% increase in October.
Heading into FY27, the draft of Frontier’s budget accounts for a total 40% increase, coupling the 20% Oct. 1 bump with a placeholder of an additional 20% increase for anticipated premiums, Poreda said. This initial budget would have brought Whately’s total assessment number to $1.16 million, a 6.49% hike of $70,851 from fiscal year 2026.
However, members of the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust voted on Wednesday morning to increase the rates for FY27 by 12.48%, which was less than the school districts had anticipated. That being the case, Poreda noted the sum that voters will need to approve at Annual Town Meeting will go down.
Additionally, on Feb. 10, the School Committee discussed a reduction of $400,000, using $100,000 in rural aid and cutting six to seven positions that equate to $300,000.
“The general consensus was that we needed to make a change so that we could make our budget more affordable for our member towns,” Poreda said.
The reduced budget would lower Whately’s share to nearly $1.12 million, a bump of 2.45%, or $26,760, from FY26.
The School Committee will present this budget at the Tuesday, March 3, hearing at 6 p.m. in Frontier Regional School’s Library Media Center.
Lemon asked if the proposed staff cuts would impact student proficiency. In response, Modestow said the change would not affect offerings for students.
For the Whately Elementary School budget, Poreda said the School Committee initially discussed an increase of around $202,000, a 8.96% increase from FY26 due to the hikes in health insurance costs. After discussion, the committee brought the numbers down to a 5.95% bump of $135,000, bringing the general fund budget to $2.4 million. Poreda said the reduction would come from moving the $40,000 cost of sick leave buy-back payments from teachers and other staff retiring to a separate article on the Annual Town Meeting warrant and pursuing other means to pay for $9,000 worth of “general supplies” and textbooks.
When Lemon asked about covering the two education budget increases with rural aid, Poreda said the districts use rural aid “a year in the rear,” given that they do not learn the amount for rural aid funding until the fall.
The public hearing on the Whately Elementary School budget will take place on Thursday, March 5, at 7 p.m. in the school’s Library Media Center.
Potential capital projects
The Selectboard and Finance Committee closed their joint meeting by reviewing the Capital Improvement Planning Committee’s capital project recommendations.
Five of the eight projects fall under “Priority A,” or “urgent, high-priority projects that should be done if at all possible,” Town Administrator Peter Kane said. These include $225,000 to replace the town’s wheeled loader, $150,000 for replacing a pickup truck, $55,000 for replacing another pickup truck with a used, three-quarter-ton pickup truck, $25,000 to replace the roof of the Whately Police Station and $6,500 for replacing the Highway Department’s equipment trailer.
Costs for “Priority B” or “high-priority projects that should be funded if there’s funding available,” Kane clarified, include $70,000 to replace the 2017 Ford utility cruiser with a new hybrid cruiser, and $12,000 for a security system and furniture at the Senior Center, a cost a nonprofit may be able to cover, according to Ferrara.
“Priority C,” or “worthwhile projects if funding is available but could be deferred to a subsequent year if needed,” Kane said, includes replacing the hallway carpeting in the Whately Elementary School for $17,000.