Mount Greylock Schools' Operating Budget Projected to Rise by 5 Percent

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The draft budget for the Mount Greylock Regional School District includes a 6 percent increase in the assessment to the town of Lanesborough and a 5.5 percent increase in the assessment to the town of Williamstown.
 
The regional School Committee, which has yet to discuss hard numbers for the fiscal 2023 spending plan, has its state-mandated public hearing on Thursday, at which time the committee also plans to vote on a budget to send to the district's member towns for consideration.
 
The budget request then will be weighed by the finance committees and select boards in each town. While those panels can make advisory votes to their respective town meetings, it is the School Committee's version of the budget that attendees will see at their annual town meetings in May (Williamstown) and June (Lanesborough).
 
If the draft budget posted on the district's website is advanced by the School Committee, Lanesborough would be assessed $5.7 million for the district's operating budget in FY23; Williamstown would be assessed $11.9 million for preK-12 education.
 
Those numbers would be up from $5.4 million and $11.3 million, respectively, for the current fiscal year.
 
The district's total operating budget in FY23 is projected to be $25.3 million, including operations funded by sources aside from assessments to member town taxpayers – sources like tuition from the towns of Hancock and New Ashford, school choice, state aid and grants.
 
In FY22, the operating budget is $24.1 million, making an increase of $1.2 million, or 4.98 percent from year to year if the FY23 budget stays as drafted.
 
The School Committee has spent months discussing the drivers of the increased budget, including a plan to hire a full-time director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging. That plan would appear to account for some of an increase of more than $100,000 in a line item for "other district-wide administration." In the draft budget, that line goes from $71,995 in FY22 to $173,839 for FY23.
 
But there are other factors at play, including increased instructional and student support staff at all three of the district's schools.
 
The school with the largest projected FY23 budget increase is Lanesborough Elementary, with an 8.8 percent hike, according to budget documents on the district's website. By contrast, the operating budget at Mount Greylock is proposed to go up by 5.1 percent, and the operating budget at Williamstown Elementary is forecast to rise by 4.8 percent.
 
That explains why the percentage increase to the Lanesborough assessment is higher than the increase to Williamstown in the current budget draft. Per the regional agreement, each town pays for operations at its elementary school, and they split the burden for the middle-high school and central administration based on a five-year rolling average of the percentage of student population.
 
For FY22, the budget voters approved last spring, Lanesborough's $5.4 million for the schools' operating budget represented 53 percent of a $10.1 million town budget approved at town meeting.
 
Williamstown's town meeting structures its budget votes differently, but education tends to also represent a little more than 50 percent of spending generated by local taxes.
 
Not surprisingly, interim Town Manager Charles Blanchard was asked about the potential impact of the Mount Greylock assessment at a town Finance Committee meeting on Feb. 23.
 
"As far as the schools, we do have the McCann budget," Blanchard told the Fin Comm. "The McCann budget is in here. It's a 10.9 percent increase, but it's a smaller amount of our budget.
 
"In the [Mount Greylock] school, I did estimate 2 percent in there. I think there's enough flexibility here if that varies. I do have that built into the budget. I would expect it will still stay in this ballpark, certainly."
 
McCann Tech's assessment to Williamstown in FY23 is projected to be $322,418, about 2.5 percent of the projected $12,970,385 bill projected to be coming from Mount Greylock (which includes the town's capital assessment). The increase in the town's assessment to the Northern Berkshire Vocational Regional School District largely is the result of a bump in the number of town residents attending the regional vocational school.
 
Blanchard's town operating budget in Williamstown currently is proposed to go up 3.5 percent from FY22 to FY23. The Finance Committee is scheduled to continue its review of the town (non-school) spending plan on Wednesday.
 
The Mount Greylock School Committee's public hearing on the FY23 budget is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday. A link to the Zoom virtual meeting is on the district's website.

Tags: fiscal 2022,   MGRSD_budget,   

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Letter: Williamstown Dealing in Toxic Sludge to Save Money? Madness

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

While Williamstown builds a $20 million fire station, Bob Menicocci and the Finance Committee expect us to be up in arms about $500,000 to deal with a very real environmental problem in a responsible fashion — toxic sludge.

Waste water treatment in Williamstown yields effluent (discharged to the Hoosic River where there is a PFAS advisory on fish from the Mass Department of Health) and sludge — a concentrated byproduct. The proposal before us is to start taking toxic sludge from other towns because the town wants to lower costs and we have the capacity.

But what is the trade-off? The trade-off is increased liability for Williamstown who would become a producer/source of toxic waste spread on New York agricultural fields (that is, our food and water) and environmental contamination. As the country scrambles to find ways to filter PFAS from our drinking water, given that it causes cancer, Williamstown wants to sign on to spreading more of the chemical around? Madness. It's a terrible idea. We should tell Casella "No" at the Select Board meeting April 14, Town Hall, 31 North St. at 7 p.m.

We can't on the one hand say: PFAS "forever chemicals" cause intractable harm to humans, ecosystems and animals, but then also say, let's put them into our food at varying levels depending on any given state legislature. Maine and Connecticut have banned the land application of PFAS chemicals; Vermont is extremely stringent; they have the right idea! Because various New England farms have been contaminated, Casella seeks to send the product to New York, essentially taking advantage of regulatory lag time. Lawmakers haven't banned it there yet. We should not be a partner in this kind of short-term exploitation.

Williamstown has it's own PFAS problem. The Hoosac Water Quality District has not explained the planned testing protocol for incoming sludge: What is the type and frequency of testing? PFAS bioaccumulates in the environment and our bloodstream. Yet, they talk of expansion. With a PFAS advisory on the Hoosic, apparently our method is leading to contamination, which doesn't make me want to say: Let's scale up! Harmful heavy metals also exist in the sludge and effluent. Human waste is a bad fertilizer in general. Too much junkfood and pharmaceuticals. Now, Williamstown wants to go into the toxic sludge business to save $500,000? Madness.

Todd Fiorentino
Williamstown, Mass.

 

 

 

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