HWRSD hosts annual budget roundtable with state lawmakers

March 18, 2021 | Sarah Heinonen
sheinonen@thereminder.com

HAMPDEN/WILBRAHAM– On March 11, the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District (HWRSD) hosted its annual budget roundtable with state Sen. Eric Lesser, state Reps. Angelo Puppolo and Brian Ashe, the Hampden Advisory Board, the Wilbraham Finance Committee and the select boards from both towns.

Director of Finance and Operations Aaron Osborne delivered a presentation to the group of officials in which he explained how grants and temporary cost savings largely allowed the district to keep the budget level from last year, despite unfunded mandated costs from the state increasing. Chair of the district’s budget subcommittee, Bill Bontempi said that the expenses increase by between $1 million and $1,500,000 each year without the revenue to keep pace.

Osborne explained that there had been an unexpected shift in town assessments this year due to a reduction in the minimum local contribution (MLC) of $13,439 for Wilbraham, but $269,672 for Hampden. While a reduction may sound like a good thing, funding not covered by the MLC is split between the towns based on their enrollment. Because of this, 80 percent of the combined $283,111 was shifted to Wilbraham, while Hampden was responsible for 20 percent.

Lesser asked why the drop in MLC was so dramatic in Hampden, but not for Wilbraham. Bontempi and Osborne explained that the number is based on income and property values, which are multiplied by a factor that the state sets yearly. Bontempi said that there was an unusual spike in income in Wilbraham of between $600,000 and $700,000, which largely accounted for the difference.

Osbourne suggested a change in the timeframe over which the data is collected. Moving from assessing the MLC for one year at a time to a longer view of five years would have a “smoothing” effect and help to lessen the impact of sudden changes, he said.

Finance Committee Member Peter Dufresne said a better way to fund regional districts is needed. “It’s unsustainable,” he said.

Fellow committee member Sue Bunnell noted that the student split had been consistent until the past five of six years.

“How do we address that shift?” asked  Wilbraham Select Board Member Carolyn Brennan. “And that shift’s not going to change, it’s going to get worse.” She asked how Wilbraham can plan for the future knowing that the shift is increasing.

Marc Ducey, chair of the Wilbraham Finance Committee, said that for every percent of enrollment shift, half a million dollars moves from Hampden’s assessment to that of Wilbraham. In turn, other services cannot be funded, including more firefighters.

Doug Boyd, co-chair of Hampden’s Advisory Board, said that the federal coronavirus relief grants  have largely insulated the town from the pandemic’s financial effects, but there was also careful planning on behalf of the town government and prioritizing of many capital projects Hampden needs.

Bontempi said the town departments and schools are “all fighting for the same scraps,” and asked if there is a way to change how funding comes into towns so there isn’t a fight over the money.

Ashe told him it is difficult to make changes at the state level because there are many legislators with their own priorities but, he said, changes are happening faster than ever due to the pandemic and now would be the time to try to make change.

Lesser told the committees and boards that other small towns have similar problems to those in Hampden and Wilbraham. In the short term, he said, the federal coronavirus relief grants will help. He noted that $1.8 billion has been allocated for k-12 education in Massachusetts.  But, he said, the medium and long-term questions need to be addressed.

The short-term funding increases, whether they be through grants or the state budget, are incremental “building blocks,” Puppolo said. The task at hand is to identify ways to bring more money into the communities or change the way it comes back to the towns.

He acknowledged that enrollment shift is always an issue in regional school districts, but said they are trying to provide as much local aid and Chapter 70 state funding as possible. He identified transportation funding as an area on which the state needs to work.

Bontempi responded that the problems with transportation are about the unfunded state transportation mandates, such as transporting special education students, which isn’t reimbursed. “We’re robbing the rest of the students to pay for these costs,” he said.

Bontempi also said that he expects a “tsunami” of students needing social-emotional services due to the impact of the pandemic isolation, as well as programs and interventionists to help close the achievement gap from remote learning.

Ganem said that the district has been using a hybrid, in-person model for the majority of the school year, resulting in “astronomical” costs for personal protective equipment (PPE), technology, and other associated costs. He also said that students will need assessments and interventionists to bring them up to the required achievement level.            Osborne expanded on Ganem’s comments, reminding the legislators that the PPE, sanitizer and plexiglass puts a financial burden on the district, as does the amount of overtime needed to keep the schools clean. There is also a medical waiting room monitor stationed at each school for potentially infected students.

“We have burned through fully on those grants,” Osborne said of the federal coronavirus relief funding received by the district.

Bontempi lamented that the western part of the state doesn’t seem to be a priority and said that by the time grant funding “filters through” school districts in eastern Massachusetts, “it’s nickels.”

Puppolo said that it is a matter of “throwing as much money at these issues as possible.” He said that the good news is that the state is seeing far better revenue numbers than expected, creating an opportunity for more funding.

A person in the Zoom chat asked about proposed early teacher retirement legislation. The idea is that by encouraging teachers with more benefits and higher pay to retire early and hiring replacements that have not yet earned the same compensation, the districts can save money.

Puppolo said that he has cosponsored a number of bills, but noted it was “early in the process.” Hearings will need to be conducted.

Lesser said that the effects of early retirement need to be studied. He called a 2015 retirement initiative a “mixed success,” noting that  it led to a staffing shortage at the Holyoke Soldiers Home.

Ashe stated, “It’s going to come down to financial analysis.”

Osborne said that he wouldn’t expect to see savings in the first year of an early retirement program and warned that, similar to the 2015 program, there could be a cohort of retirees all at once. Ganem and Bontempi both remarked that the districts would lose experienced teachers in exchange for the cost savings. Bontempi suggested an incentive package to encourage young people to go into education.

Shifting topics, School Committee Member Patrick Kiernan took issue with the guidance from Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Commissioner Jeffrey Riley. He pointed out that districts were put in a tough place financially with little concrete guidance in the fall and then abruptly told it would be mandatory to eliminate hybrid learning and bring as many students back in person as possible.

“It is wildly inappropriate,” to make Chapter 70 funds contingent on following Riley’s mandate, Kiernan said. He noted that Western Massachusetts has only one representative – from Holyoke – on the state Board of Education and asked for more representation.

School Committee Vice Chair Maura Ryan summed up the sentiments, saying, “Don’t forget about us.”

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