By Allison McDonald

Budget season is upon us and again our public schools are facing deep cuts – a total of around $2.4 million across the elementary and regional secondary schools. The Amherst and Regional School Committees will have to make tough decisions to finalize their budgets and they have very few options available to close the gap. To help understand why large cuts are needed, I dusted off and updated a column I wrote last year as Chair and member of the school committees when we faced similar budget challenges.

Join the upcoming budget hearings to learn more and provide your input. The Amherst elementary schools hearing is Tuesday, February 13 and the regional schools hearing is Tuesday, February 27 (agenda not yet posted). Tonight’s hearing is at 6:30 pm online and on Amherst Media.

Why are the schools facing deep budget cuts again this year?

School costs are increasing at a higher rate than funding from Amherst is increasing. For Amherst elementary schools, the costs to provide the same services and programs next year (“level services”) are 6.5% ($1.7 million) higher than this year’s budget, while funding from the town is up 3.0% ($778 thousand). For the regional schools, costs are increasing 8.3% ($2.8 million) while funding from Amherst is increasing 3.0% ($533 thousand) and all other funding is increasing about $374 thousand next year, including from other regional towns.

Some of the gap in the elementary schools budget is being covered with around $400 thousand of remaining federal COVID-relief funds (ESSER funds). But, since the majority of school budgets is contractually-bound staff salaries, the rest of the gap of about $1.9 million in the region and $500 thousand in Amherst can be closed only through reducing or eliminating staff positions.

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Why are we spending more than other districts? Why is our spending per pupil so high?

The differences in per-pupil spending between districts are related primarily to the differences in the needs of the students enrolled. In Amherst, 49% of our students are “high needs” as defined by the state, that includes students with disabilities (22%), students whose families are economically disadvantaged (34%) and students learning English (14%). In the regional schools, 44% of students are “high needs.” Additionally, our districts’ staffing models, with small class sizes and low student-to-teacher ratios, our small schools, our family and student support programs, as well as staff pay and benefits, all contribute to higher per-pupil spending than some other districts.

A good way to compare spending across districts while also taking into account the needs of its students is to compare actual spending (“Actual Net School Spending”) to what the state requires (“Required Net School Spending”). Amherst elementary schools are spending 167% of what’s required and regional schools are spending 135% of what’s required. Similar-sized districts in our area range from 126% to 142%, and the average across all school districts in the state is 125%.

Can’t we cut administration and central office positions instead of teachers and paras?

The Amherst and regional schools invest around 4% (around $4 million) of their spending on administration (including some clerical staff), which is in line with the averages for districts across the state. The schools invest 48-50% of their spending each year for teaching staff, including paraeducators and guidance. (*See note below.) Reducing or eliminating administrative staff might trim some costs, but not the work that is needed to run our schools, such as accounting, enrollment, IT, HR, state and federal reporting, school and district communications with families, and more. The necessary administrative work would need to shift to the workload of remaining staff, primarily teachers. 

Why isn’t Amherst spending more of its budget on public schools?

The town of Amherst spends about 60% of its annual operating budget on our public schools. No other department receives more than 16% of the operating budget. In fact, the schools invest more in school employee pay than the town does in public safety, public works, general government, libraries, conservation, and community service departments combined. This diagram shows an overview of the revenue sources and spending flows for the town and schools’ FY23 budgets.

The town has enough money —why can’t the town increase funding for schools so we don’t have to cut school staff?

The primary ways the town could increase funding for schools are to cut funding for other town departments or to raise property taxes. Because Amherst invests so much more in schools than in any other town service, an increase to avoid the more than $2 million in staff and program cuts in the schools would require significant cuts to all other town services. The Town’s entire operating budget is increasing by $2.2 million next year and more than half of that is going to schools. Even if all of that increase were to go to schools, it’s still not enough to cover the $4 million+ of increased costs for the current programs and services in our schools. 

Alternatively, the town could ask voters to approve an increase in property taxes of more than the legally-allowed maximum of 2.5%

What can we do to get more funding for schools and teachers?

There aren’t a lot of options to get more funding for schools next year short of asking voters to approve an increase in property taxes. 

Better state funding of public schools is needed. That requires a multi-year advocacy effort with no guarantees. Reforming how charter schools are funded is critical — our districts spend more than $3 million per year for charter school tuition. We also need the state to increase its “minimum per pupil aid,” and to fully fund things such as transportation and other line items that are committed but subject to the funding decisions of the Legislature.

Perhaps more important, we need to build and diversify Town revenue sources. This is a complex, ongoing issue that is beyond the scope of this article. Still, without a strengthened and expanded base of revenue, such as through economic development, we will continually face tough school budget years like this one, and risk losing much of what we prize about our great public schools.

*Note that the budget documents presented to the school committee provide detail only on the general fund or appropriated budget. The data reported to and by DESE includes all revenue sources, including significant federal and state grants as well as other restricted revenue funds. Since much of this special revenue is applied to teaching, the general fund budget understates the proportion of total district spending on teaching.

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Allison McDonald served on the Amherst and Regional School Committees 2018-2023 and was Chair of the Amherst SC 2020-2023 and Chair of the Regional SC 2020-2022. She’s lived in Amherst since 2002 and volunteers as the Managing Editor for The Amherst Current.