Our schools need you before the holiday break!

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12/14, 12/16 & 12/17 - Add our schools to your holiday to do list

Upcoming events & Action Items:
  • Attend Dr. Xi’s Listening Lounge on Friday 12/13 at 4:30 and/or submit a question for the Listening Lounge. This could be a good opportunity to express concern about the state of our facilities and/or encourage Dr. Xi to request part of the Town of Amherst’s surplus for the schools or ask what the status is of this. UPDATE: At the Listening Lounge Dr. Xi confirmed she will be asking for some surplus funds.
  • Four Towns Meeting 12/14 9:00 AM in the ARMS Library: Representatives from Amherst, Pelham, Shutesbury and Leverett will meet to discuss funding for the Regional Schools. There is no public comment at this meeting, but members of the public are welcome to attend – and it’s always good to let our public officials know we are paying attention and that our kids at ARMS & ARHS are still Amherst residents who deserve great schools. 
  • The final Town Council Meeting of 2024 will be Monday December 16 at 6:30 PM.  Let’s continue to tell Amherst Town Council that our schools are important to us!  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. 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 below).
  • 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. 
The longer version:
  • Dr. Xi and the Regional School Committee (RSC) are preparing for the next Four Towns Meeting on Saturday 12/14 at the Amherst Regional Middle School Library. Dr. Xi intends to present the four member towns with several scenarios, all that use the 6% increase from FY25 in the base for calculating the increase for FY26. School Committee members were clear at the 12/10 RSC meeting that last spring, all four member towns voted to include the additional $355,440 for the Regional Schools and that amount now becomes part of the base, and is not optional at this point. Dr. Xi stressed that she and her team really need to know now, and not in several months, what amount of money they can expect for FY26 as they are already planning on how to handle the deficit and need to know exactly how large it is. 
  • Amherst Finance Committee is sending the FY26 Budget Guidelines to Amherst Town Council on 12/16/24. Some items in the guidelines relevant to the schools:
    • They do not currently include the $355,440 in the base for calculating the FY26 increase, but prioritize its inclusion when funds become available. Dr. Xi has been clear that the schools need to know now how much money they have to work with. 
    • They also currently limit all functional areas of town (municipal, library, elementary schools, regional schools) to a 3% increase from their FY25 amount, which will result in a significant deficit at both the elementary and regional schools. While equal percentage increases across all four functional areas might seem fair, there are some factors which put especially the Regional Schools at a disadvantage using this method.  For example, while the Regional Schools are paying millions of dollars in retiree pension and health benefits from WITHIN their operating budget, the municipal side is receiving money for those expenses ON TOP OF their operating budget. This may be the standard way of handling regional school districts but it puts significant pressure on the Regional Schools operating budget and should be considered, as should the way in which capital allocation supplements budgets. 
  • Also on the Agenda for the 12/16/24 Amherst Town Council Meeting is a “Proposed Request to Town Manager for Financial Order for Road and Sidewalk Repairs” so it seems as though Town Council will ask the Town Manager to re-request the $1M or at least part of it for roads and sidewalks. This is the money that community members asked that the Town Council appropriate at least partially to the schools. UPDATE: At the Listening Lounge Dr. Xi confirmed she will be asking for some surplus funds.
  • In 2025, the Amherst Finance Committee and Amherst Town Council will continue discussing and eventually vote on the Funding Model for the four major capital projects (Library, Elementary School, Department of Public Works, Fire Station). The funding models vary in terms of project start dates and how much of the funding comes from borrowing versus town reserves. All of the models, though, will result in constrained operating budgets as well as severely limit the funds available for ongoing capital needs (like repairs to buildings, the purchase of school buses, replacement of technology). Needs of this type are currently paid for via the annual Capital Improvement Plan funded by 10.5% of our tax dollars which are sequestered for this purpose. The funding models the town is considering redirect much of this money toward financing the four capital projects. We should ask the Finance Committee and Town Council to explain how existing needs are going to be met in each of the four proposed scenarios. Currently, we already have trouble meeting ongoing capital needs of our schools and other town buildings, as well as keeping up with the purchase of capital equipment. How will these needs be met when even less money is available? Amherst Finance Committee will meet Tuesday 12/17/24 3-5PM via Zoom to discuss. Town Council will likely take up the discussion in January. 
  • The middle school roof: When the condition of the ARMS roof came up last spring, then Interim Superintendent Doug Slaughter said that the district had been applying for years for a grant through the state to repair the roof, so as to avoid the four towns from footing the entire bill. Recently, ARPS has been invited into the accelerated repair program, but it is not clear what the timeline for those repairs would be. On 12/12/24, Dr. Xi indicated that she is having the building examined, and some issues such as wet or fallen ceiling tiles addressed, but that problems will be ongoing until the roof is repaired. We should ask for a timeline on this, whether the grant would fully cover the necessary repairs, whether the grant would also provide funding for remediating the existing damage that has happened over the years, and whether the four towns will make up any difference. 
 
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