WILBRAHAM – Despite a fiscal year 2017 (FY17) budget gap of $537,990, the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School Committee recently voted to approve the budget with an aim toward reducing the shortfall.

Assistant Superintendent for Business Beth Regulbuto said during a public forum on the district’s FY17 budget on March 9 the total budget is approximately $45.9 million. The FY16 budget was about $45 million.

She noted the FY17 budget represents a 1.95 percent increase from the current fiscal year budget, which amounts to $879,592.

In FY16 the district initially faced a $1.4 million shortfall, which shrunk a $1 million budget gap. At least seven full-time equivalent teaching positions were cut in FY16.

Superintendent of Schools M. Martin O’Shea said the district is looking to find “creative ways” to contain costs and stay within the budget.

He added at this time he doesn’t know what measures would be taken to reducing the shortfall, but that would be the district’s top goal in the coming weeks and months.

O’Shea said in recent years the district has delayed investing in technology, instructional materials, and supplies due to challenging budgets.

“The more you push those off into the future, the bigger the bill,” he added.

Regulbuto said the operating budget is dependent on three primary revenue sources – the federal government, the state, and local revenue. Seventy percent of revenue is locally funded. State and federal aid amounts to 30 percent of the budget.

The base aid for Chapter 70 is about $11.5 million for FY17, according to information from the district. This amounts to a 0.53 percent increase. However, the district has seen a decrease in Chapter 71 regional transportation reimbursement – the amount has been reduced 3.47 percent from $1.36 million in FY16 to $1.31 million in FY17.

The state is supposed to fully fund regional transportation, but has not done so the past several years.

Members of the district and School Committee also recently attended a legislative breakfast in which a decline in regional transportation funding was addressed, Regulbuto said.

“One of the big movements in the state is a proposal to bring regional transportation to the 80 percent level,” she explained. “Right now that is not in conjunction [with the FY17 budget]. Hopefully that will be heard because there’s quite a few people struggling with transportation costs.”  

She added Chapter 71 funding for FY17 is projected at 65 percent.

“If we had been funded at 100 percent over the last three years, we’d have another $1.9 million in our budget,” Regulbuto said.

The district continues to face a decline in enrolment at the middle school level, which is a driving force for a proposed amendment to the regional agreement between Hampden and Wilbraham. Amending the regional agreement would allow for a unified middle school, but voters at both community’s 2016 Annual Town Meetings must approve the change.

The budget assessments for the two towns have also seen increases, Regulbuto said.
 

“The Hampden assessment would be an increase of 2.8 percent, which is just about $167,000, just under, and that includes their component of the Minnechaug [High School] debt,” she explained. “Wilbraham’s assessment increase is at 1.99 percent and that’s just under $620,000.”

Regulbuto said the FY17 budget does not include more than $200,000 in potential savings the district could gain in the first year of a unified middle school by closing Thornton W. Burgess Middle School.

School Committee Chair Peter Salerno said later in the meeting Wilbraham’s Board of Selectmen has endorsed a unified middle school, but the committee has yet to receive a similar endorsement from Hampden selectmen nor has the Hampden board declared opposition to amending the regional agreement between the two towns.

Hampden’s Town Meeting is set for April 25 and Wilbraham’s is scheduled for May 16.