The needle is starting to move on how the Amherst Town Council and Finance Committee is talking about school funding, which is great! The Finance Committee spent a good deal of the last meeting talking about school funding and debating whether it is possible to appropriate more money to the schools and change the way budgeting is done in the future. This does not mean that more money will come to the schools, or even that some of the surplus will come to the schools, but it has become part of the conversation which is encouraging.
At Tuesday’s Regional School Committee meeting, there was an interesting discussion among School Committee Members about the budget and the Town of Amherst’s surplus and proposed allocations. The Regional School Committee intends to ask for a portion of the surplus although it’s unclear whether their proposal will come in time, given that the Town Council seems poised to appropriate most of it on Monday 11/18/24. This is why we should push for this process to slow down so that all stakeholders (and not just municipal departments) can be consulted before the surplus is allocated. It’s worth watching the last 25 minutes (starts at time stamp 1:55:00 at https://www.youtube.com/
Also at Tuesday’s Regional School Committee meeting, the Committee passed a resolution in support of the Mass Promise to Invest initiative, which would shift the responsibility of charter school tuition from individual school districts to the state itself. In doing so, they joined Northampton and Greenfield in supporting this initiative. The Regional School Committee also passed a resolution to oppose the expansion of the Chinese Immersion Charter School. It looks as though the Town Council will take a similar position on Monday. Additionally, the Amherst Town Council will consider on Monday a letter to the Governor and MA Secretary of Education outlining Amherst’ concerns around state education funding, including the negative impact of charter tuition payments. So, there is local attention on these issues and that’s a good thing.