Budget Analysis by SOS Amherst – More transparency, fairness needed

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On Monday, Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman gave his presentation of the FY26 Budget. Recording here. Presentation here. FY26 Budget here. FY Capital Improvement Plan here.  Today, Dr. Xi and the District Finance Director, Shannon Bernacchia appeared at the Finance Committee meeting to answer questions about the budget requests (Video recording here). A longer summary is after upcoming action opportunities that need your support. 

 

ACTION – PUBLIC COMMENT at upcoming Meetings:

  • Monday June 16th – Town Council vote on the Budget
What are we asking for?
  • We are asking that the Town Council approve the amounts for the schools as included in the Town Manager’s budget. It isn’t as much as we need but it’s likely as much as we can hope for this year.
  • We want to remind Councilors (and the public) that the Amherst elementary and regional schools are cutting a total of nearly $2 million dollars in expenses and 22-23 positions next year, and that these cuts have real impacts on programs, staff and students. These budgets are already COMPROMISES.
  • The Regional schools will lose 12.1 positions even if this budget is passed.
  • The Elementary schools will lose 10-11 positions even if this budget is passed.
  • The loss of 22 positions at the schools is not the same as the Town “freezing” 6.4 positions, especially since several of the Town positions have often been unfilled, and since the Town ADDED 16 positions over the last four years, while the schools have been cutting positions.
  • Contrary to the language in the Town Manager’s budget saying that our schools “are recognized as some of the finest in the state,” this isn’t true and our high school, once one of the top high schools in the state, has dropped to the middle of the pack. 
  • Town Councilors should TRUST our School Committee members and Superintendent and approve the budgets that our School Committees have passed.
  • As always, add your stories or personal reasons why our schools matter to you.
 

SUMMARY OF MONDAY’S BUDGET PRESENTATION & THE BUDGET:

Watch School Committee Member Deb Leonard’s public comment at the beginning of the meeting (at the 5 minute mark), calling out the Finance Committee for overstepping their role by sending Dr. Xi an exhaustive list of questions. The Town Manager made a comment that the requests from the Council to increase the budgets for the Schools came very late in the process – note that the School Districts had been raising the alarm about deficits since September. That the Town Council and Town Manager chose not to engage in discussions about that reality at Four Towns Meetings or Budget Coordinating Group Meetings is not the fault of District Leadership. This issue was only addressed late in the game because Town Council refused to address it at any earlier opportunity.
 
Elementary Schools:
  • Town will provide a 4% increase over the FY25 budget amount ($28,049,236) PLUS a one-time gift of 1% in free cash ($269,704), for a total of a 5% increase over FY25.
  • This leaves the Elementary Schools with a $269,704 gap that they will need to close by eliminating 3-4 additional positions. We will not know more details about that until the Elementary School Committee meets again.
  • By giving the money to the schools as a 4% increase and then the remainder from free cash, the Town is assuming that expenses for the Elementary Schools will drop in FY27 when the new school opens. It remains to be seen that the potential savings will erase a $269,704 gap, especially given the added expense of operating the 6th grade as an academy within ARMS.
  • Overall, for FY26, the Elementary Schools will cut $1,156,758 in spending and 10-11 positions. 
Regional Schools: 
  • Town will provide a 4.81% increase over the FY25 budget amount ($19,744,008).
  • Overall, for FY26, the Regional Schools will cut $812,126 in spending and 12.1 positions.
  • Leverett Town meeting approved the Regional budget assessment. Pelham will vote on May 10th and Shutesbury will vote on May 31st. Three out of four towns need to pass the budget.
Municipal Budget: 
  • In order to stay within the 4% budget guidelines, the Town Manager is freezing 6.4 positions. These are one in Finance, one in Police, one in Fire/EMS, two in CRESS, one in DPW-Highway, and 0.4 in Recreation.
  • Several of these positions (Police, Fire/EMS and CRESS) have historically been vacant. In particular, it is rare for the Police and Fire/EMS departments to be fully staffed due to challenges in hiring (as the Town Manager stated again on Monday), so in most recent years, salaries for these vacant positions were held in the budget anyway, and then just rolled into the surplus at the end of the year. So, in a sense, some of these “freezes” won’t actually equate to a reduction in Town services but instead in a reduction of the end of year surplus.
Capital Improvement Plan:
  • In order to provide for the additional funds for the Regional Schools, the percentage of tax revenue dedicated to Capital has been reduced from 10.5% to 10.265% for FY26. This reduction is not coming out of any new capital spending but instead out of debt payments.
  • 84% of capital funds in FY26 are going to the Municipal side of the budget. This is typical in terms of the Municipal side getting the vast majority of the Capital money and schools seeing very little.
  • Many Municipal departments have seen no increase or very minimal increases in their operating expenses over the last decade and instead seem to be receiving more and more in the way of capital funds to cover costs that might otherwise be included in their operating expenses. It is doubtful that the Municipal side of the budget could stay within the prescribed 4% annual increase without these additional supplemental funds. Presenting the Capital Improvement Plan completely separately from the Budget obscures how much additional money flows to the Municipal departments every year. 
  • There does not seem to be any publicly available means of tracking where all of this capital money goes once it is approved and how it is ultimately spent – more transparency is needed.
A note on Transparency: 
  • The Amherst Budget Book used to contain much more detail than it now does.
  • Over the years, a lot of financial information has been removed and replaced with photos and lists of accomplishments.
  • The budget is missing details on grant funding, capital costs broken out by department, sources of funding for each department, and many other details that either used to be present or are routinely included in the Budget Book in other communities (Northampton has a very detailed Budget Book in comparison to Amherst).
  • Transparency is important because as a community, we are being asked to accept that there simply isn’t enough money to sufficiently fund our schools, and yet we have very little transparency into how the money is actually being spent. 
SUMMARY OF THURSDAY’S FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING
  • Dr Xi was sent a seven page (!!!) list of questions in advance of this meeting. Many of them were well outside of the purview of the Town Council and delved into district operations and programmatic decisions. School Committee Member Jennifer Shaio was present and pushed back on the nature of many of the questions, as did Dr. Xi. Dr. Xi and her Finance Director, Shannon Bernacchia, did an amazing job of providing some of the answers that Finance Committee were seeking, while trying to stay focused on the questions that were actually within the purvue of the Town Council.
  • Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke claimed that the questions are within the purview of the Town Council because the School budgets are higher than the guidelines provided by the Council, but Jennifer Shaio reminded everyone that those are just guidelines and it is the duty of the School Committee to ensure that schools are meeting the needs of students. She urged Finance Committee to stay focused on the questions they needed answered in order to make a decision, and not just ask every question that they were curious about. Jennifer urged the Town Council to trust the School Committee in the same way that they have recently stated that they trust the Library Trustees.
  • Shannon and Dr. Xi reminded everyone that the school budget books are not final because the total amounts have been so fluid for so many months. All of the charts will not be updated until a final number is known, because it is too much work to update the entire document every time a new dollar amount is put out there. Many of the questions Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke had were because she found what she thought were discrepancies but were explained by some sections not yet being brought up to date.
  • Dr. Xi had to repeatedly explain that the districts are obligated to serve all children who are enrolled, and that they can’t control who enrolls AFTER the budget is made and thus there are often changes once the school year starts.
  • Shannon confirmed what some of us have been saying for months, that there are costs that the Regional Schools are carrying themselves (like all IT/computers) for which the Town receives supplemental funds.
  • It is really worth listening to some of this meeting. Recording here.