By George Ryan

Not unexpectedly, on Monday night the Town Council voted to approve a 6% increase to the Town’s funding of the Regional School budget, rejecting the Town Manager’s proposed increase of 4% and departing from the Town Council’s own financial guidelines.

The $355,440 shortfall (the difference between the Town Manager’s plan and the budget approved by Town Council) will be made up by using one-time, non-recurring Federal ARPA funds. The other two alternatives, to draw from reserves or to make cuts elsewhere in the budget, were rejected and in my view rightly so. But the use of ARPA funds does not come without a cost.

The Town Manager’s initial proposal to take the needed funds from the ARPA allocation to install additional solar panels at the new elementary school would have jeopardized substantial tax credits available for that installation, lessened longer-term gains from reduced electric bills to the Town, and put a dent in our climate action goals. The recommendation of the Finance Committee was to find the needed funds elsewhere by reductions “in any uncertain (ARPA) allocations.” The vagueness of that recommendation is deliberate but wherever that reduction comes from (it is ultimately the Town Manager’s call) it will exact a cost.  

So why did the Council take this action?

Despite requests from the Town Manager that go back well over a year for the Regional School Committee to begin working on a long-term fiscal sustainability plan, that did not happen. While the Regional Schools have operated for the past 15 months under an interim superintendent, it is not at all clear to me why this precluded at least beginning the process. The other reason, as presented by the Finance Committee, was that the other three Towns had already approved the 6% increase and to reject the modified assessment method would have thrown the entire budget process into chaos. In fact, during the discussion at Council, it was unclear what the actual consequences would be but it was assumed by most they would not be good. 

What is so good about the current “compromise”?

It guarantees that the Regional School deficit will be substantially larger next year (estimated at $1.5M), partly due to the use of $500,000 of Federal COVID relief dollars (ESSER funds) to fill gaps in the FY25 budget. And, as the Finance Committee acknowledged, it has been the use of non-recurring ESSER funds in FY25 budget and in FY24 that has contributed to the current “crisis.” Assuming a 4% yearly increase in expenses over the next few years, the Regional School budget deficit will grow to $5.8M by FY29. In fact, the Town’s finance staff believe that Amherst will be hard pressed to sustain even a modest 2.5% increase in revenue over the next few years, so projected deficits would be substantially higher. 

What’s Next

Besides approving the 6% increase in funding, the Council also voted to send a letter to the Regional School Committee, with copies to the leadership of the other three Towns in the region, laying out the current financial situation of the Town and requesting that they begin the budgeting process earlier and engage in discussions with the four towns to better understand the towns’ ability to support education in the current economic environment. The suggestion is that discussions begin by August 1. The Council recognizes that this is up to the Regional School Committee and it hopes that it will heed its advice.  

Probably the greatest myth is that Amherst does not value education or educators. Year after year, 60% of the Town’s operational budget goes to education. And the lion’s share of that cost – over 80% – is the cost of labor. Labor costs include yearly cost of living increases, contractual step increases, health insurance, and generous pension benefits. The Town’s share has not changed despite the steadily declining enrollment. In the past 25 years, the combined enrollment of K-12 has declined by 41%. The decline in enrollment in the Regional schools has been over 50%. When you combine the decline in enrollments with the steady support of taxpayers for the schools you discover something quite startling. In 2003 the spending per student funded by residential taxpayers (homeowners and renters) was $4,091. In 2023, the spending per student had risen to $12,456, a more than 200% increase.

This is not sustainable. The residential taxpayer is owed an explanation for why the cost to educate our students rises year after year while the number of students we educate declines. They deserve a plan to bring spending into line with revenues. And calling for such a plan does not mean that one does not value education or educators.

In fact, as the current financial situation becomes more and more untenable, continued calls to grant increases to “maintain level services” in fact does a disservice to our educators and our children. Hoping that Amherst College will come to the rescue or that the taxpayers will vote to increase their property taxes after just voting a substantial increase to fund a new elementary school is not a plan. The School Committee must make some difficult but long overdue decisions. And in the interim, funding yet another unsustainable increase only delays the inevitable and painful choices we, as a community, have to make.  

George Ryan has lived in Amherst since 1987 and currently serves as Town Council representative for District 3. His two daughters are proud graduates of the Amherst public schools.