Amherst Elementary Schools budget to cut over 10 positions
At last night’s Amherst School Committee meeting (video here), Dr. Xi and Interim Finance Director Shannon Bernacchia presented a budget update (attached) for the Amherst (elementary) Schools for next year. The elementary budget is currently $1,478,143 over budget for next year. This will likely necessitate the elimination of 8-9 teachers, 1 clerical position and 4 paraeducators at the elementary schools, as well as five positions at the Central Office (see page 4 of the attached presentation). Dr. Xi and her team have been working with the principals to identify specific positions that would be eliminated.
The Amherst School Committee will hold their annual budget hearing on Tuesday February 25th at 6:30 PM in the ARMS library. Dr. Xi has indicated that she will release a draft budget in advance of that so that community members have time to review before the budget hearing. This budget hearing is the main opportunity for the public to weigh in on the Amherst Schools budget for next year. When we have more information we will share it here, and as always there will be an opportunity for community members to submit written comments/voicemails in lieu of attending in-person.
There was a discussion of the budget for the current year and Dr. Xi and her team presented the Q2 budget update including any line items that are currently trending high and at risk of exceeding their allotted budgets this year. Special education continues to be an area in which resources are insufficient to meet need.
The School Committee discussed how the schools can better communicate their capital (facilities) needs to the town of Amherst so that those needs can be met and deferred maintenance can be addressed. They discussed the fact that the process by which capital needs get addressed via the Joint Capital Planning Committee (JCPC) is “mysterious” and that the process runs through the Town Manager. They want to make sure that, in the future, the schools needs are articulated and met both during the JCPC process and in the case of future year end surpluses. School Committee members also noted that the money that JCPC has to allocate is likely to be cut in half in future years in order to accomodate the spending on the four major capital projects in Amherst. The JCPC process for next year will be starting in February/March in Amherst, and this may be an opportunity to advocate for more money for our schools’ capital needs.
Finally, the Amherst School Committee reorganized last night and the new Chair is Jennifer Shaio and the new Vice Chair is Bridget Hynes.