AMHERST – The Amherst-Pelham Regional School Committee met on Nov. 9 to go over the budgeting items for the past financial quarter as well as the first quarter of the new school year.

The discussion of budget started with review of the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2021. Amherst Finance Director Doug Slaughter walked the committee through the report. He started by showing the district that they finished well under budget in FY21. While some savings were already anticipated, Slaughter explained in his report that there were many potential expenses that were originally anticipated heading into the fourth quarter that were not realized. The fiscal school year begins July 1 and ends June 30 of the next year.

Slaughter also explained in the report that support from federal COVID-19-related grants helped mitigate some of the expenses but since some were based on a reimbursement process, the actual amounts available were not known until late in the fiscal year. Unspent budgeted funds will add to the district’s Excess and Deficiency Fund balance.

In the quarter 1 (Q1) report for FY22, the budget is also doing well. According to Slaughter, there have been no extraordinary budgetary events that cause immediate concern but there are a couple of areas of the budget that will require attention as the year goes on. In the report Slaughter writes, “School expense accounts are largely on track with English Learner Education requiring some closer monitoring as we move through the year and Special Education requiring some action steps to be taken.”

The areas of English learner education and special education within the budget report are already over 25 percent on the budget, which is the number they aim for at the end of the Q1 budget. Slaughter explained in the report that expense accounts that exceed 25 percent are either at that level due to spending on items that are purchased at the beginning of the fiscal year – including pension liability payments, software license renewals, materials for classroom instruction – or have encumbered money in anticipation of know spending needs such as transportation services, custodial supplies and contracted services.  

According to Slaughter, for special education, most spending is encumbered so they can meet the needs of students as the year goes on and the needs of certain students are more established. English learner education is being tracked differently partly due to readjusting with staffing as in person schooling falls back into place. Slaughter was more in depth in the report writing, “In English Learner Education some costs for translation and interpretation are running above budget at present and we are monitoring that trend to see if it persists or moderates as we progress through second quarter. Due to the delays in hiring as well as the elevated needs of the students as we return to in-person school, Special Education is anticipating spending well above budget. These two things have caused us to acquire outside contracted staff to provide needed services. Federal grant monies (ESSER grants) will be able to support many of these services and as we work through the year we will be evaluating and shifting costs to those grants. This will reduce the burden currently shown in the special education budget, but continued monitoring will be needed.”

Slaughter added on these two expense accounts to the committee, “There’s a fair amount of resources we reserved to prepare for the needs of the kids. We’ll keep an eye on it closely through the next couple of months.”