Four Towns Meeting summary

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Four Towns Meeting Summary

Four Towns Meeting Summary
At the 12/14 Four Towns Mtg, Dr. Xi presented updated budget projections for the 2025-2026 school year for the Regional Schools. With the new updates, the projected deficit has decreased but still stands at approximately $1 million. Dr. Xi and School Committee members did a great job of advocating for our schools to town officials from Amherst, Pelham, Shutesbury and Leverett. If you have a moment, consider sending them a note of thanks (RegionalSchoolCommittee@arps.org, hermanx@arps.org). 
 
Some key points: 
  • Dr. Xi is already planning for 2025-2026 and really needs to know soon how much money she can count on. Amherst’s timeline of updating information in the spring doesn’t help. Nor does conservative budgeting that generates an end of year surplus instead of prioritizing operating budgets now. 
  • Dr. Xi and her team have already found $900,000 in savings in the budget, and have done exactly what towns have asked of them, in terms of trying to reduce costs. The budget they are now asking for still has $1M in cuts in it. School Committee members stressed that we are not talking about funding some incredibly robust budget – we are talking about funding a budget that will mean an additional $1M in cuts. 
  • Dr. Xi and her team are looking at all possible options and programmatic changes that could decrease costs. At this time, with the deficit smaller than it was projected in October, consolidating the middle and high school is no longer as necessary, and while she is still looking at that option, it is only one of many. She is also looking at changes to start times and transportation and changes at the high school schedule, as well as examining all departments and expenses to look for savings. She is negotiating agreements with organizations and the Town of Amherst that use the Regional School building (such as the Recreation department for sports programming) to ensure that the district is receiving fair payment for use of its buildings. She is committed to keeping any staff cuts as far away from the students as possible, preserving student-facing positions. 
  • Most Regional School Districts are seeing a 5-6% increase in expenses over 2024-2025, so this is not just an Amherst problem, and the 3% increase being offered by the Town of Amherst won’t be enough to keep up with cost escalation. 
  • Of the Four Towns, representatives at the meeting from Amherst were least willing to increase their contribution beyond the 3% year over year increase currently included in the FY26 Financial Guidelines, and those guidelines don’t even include the full amount that Amherst gave last year. With reference to this, a representative from Shutesbury said that Shutesbury wants the full amount received by the Region for FY25 to be included in the base for FY26, and that if Amherst is having an issue with this because they used one-time funds to get to that number, then that is a problem for Amherst to figure out. 
  • There was a long discussion regarding which assessment method should be used this year and moving forward for determining how much each of the four towns must contribute to the schools.
  • Discussion will continue at the February 8th Four Towns meeting.
 
Upcoming Meetings and Action Items: 
  • The final Town Council Meeting of 2024 will be Monday December 16 at 6:30 PM.  Join APEA members to tell Amherst Town Council that our schools are important.  Join in-person at Town Hall, via Zoom or Submit a Written Public Comment.  Ask the Town Council to prioritize our schools in the FY26 Financial Guidelines and include the Region’s full amount in the base. Tell them that our school leaders are planning for 2025-2026 now and need to know how much money they can count on.Talk about why our schools matter to you and your family. New to making a public comment? See our explainer here. 
  • Finance Committee Meeting 12/17/24 3-5PM. Join via Zoom. Ask the Finance Committee to consider the ongoing needs of our schools in their selection of a funding model for the four planned major capital projects in town (more explanation of this here) 
  • Communicate directly with Town Councilors. Find them here. Find your district here. 
  • The Amherst-Pelham Education Association has asked us to share their petition, which requests part of the surplus be allocated to the schools. You can find it here. 
  • Save the date – January 13, 2025 6:30 PM will be the first Town Council Meeting of 2025. Full 2025 meeting schedule available here. 
  • Forward this email to your networks so that we can get more community members engaged in understanding the challenges facing our schools. 
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