LONGMEADOW — Before a March 20 vote on the $80.82 million budget for fiscal year 2024, interim Finance Director Paul Pasterczyk reviewed with the Longmeadow Select Board the changes since the last time the budget had been analyzed. He said the state had originally omitted about $60,000 in exemption reimbursements. Of this additional revenue, $14,000 was added to the line item for code enforcement officers, bringing its total to $64,000. The remaining $46,000 will be included in a spring Town Meeting warrant article for wage settlements.

Select Board member Mark Gold said Gov. Maura Healey’s supplemental budget will increase the payment for Longmeadow Public Schools’ special education to offset an increase in the state-determined out-of-district placement tuition costs. He asked how the town might retrieve money for taxpayers, considering the town funded the district’s special education needs through taxes.

Pasterczyk said the money will likely be distributed directly to the district through the state’s special education reimbursement mechanism known as the circuit breaker. The town could revise the budget at the fall Town Meeting or ask the committee to return the money at the end of the fiscal year.

Select Board member Thomas Lachiusa noted that the district has often returned unspent funds back to the town, particularly prior to the coronavirus pandemic, calling the school department “pretty upfront.”

Gold said he was concerned residents would be overtaxed. When asked by Lachiusa, Pasterczyk said if the supplemental budget provided $100,000 to the district, a number Gold had suggested, it would amount to 4 cents per taxpayer. Gold pointed out that once taxed that money, the 4 cents would be a permanent part of the tax base.

The FY24 budget was approved and will be included on the fall Town Meeting warrant.

The board also approved the $2.34 million capital planning budget, including a $25,000 increase to the $100,000 project development line item to provide for guardrail installation as well as paving.

Assistant Town Manager Corrin Meise-Munns informed the board that the Longmeadow Police

Department would be the lead community in a partnership with the East Longmeadow Police Department to implement the Mental Health Jail/Arrest Diversion Program. The grant-funded program provides a “co-responder” from the Center for Human Development, a local nonprofit specializing in mental health care. The co-responding clinicians would “assist officers at the onset of a call” involving a mental health crisis, said Meise-Munns. The program is intended to divert people in crisis to mental or behavioral health providers, rather than being arrested or brought to jail. Meise-Munns said the program’s success would be measured by the number of future emergency calls involving the individual in crisis and reductions in transport to the emergency department.

Lachiusa said there are times when “out-of-control” people need to be handcuffed and other times de-escalation of a situation works.

Select Board member Vineeth Hemavathi asked if the clinician would be physically embedded with the responding officers or if they would only be available via phone. Meise-Munns said she was unsure but would find out provide that information in the future.