By Nina Mankin
As many of you are no doubt aware, the Amherst public (and regional) schools (ARPS) are once again confronting a budget crisis. Just this past year, costs to run the schools increased by 7.4% for the regional and 7.7% for our elementary schools – this is the percent change in the total operating budget of just providing the same services for the coming year (commonly called “level services”) and is in large part due to increases in health insurance (14.2%) and pensions.
The 3.5% (recently raised to 4.0%) increase across all municipal departments proposed by Town Manager Paul Bockelman, and ratified by the Town Council, does not come close to meeting our educational needs. Tasked with making these numbers work, our school principals, in collaboration with our Superintendent, returned budgets that cut nearly 40 positions across two districts. The cuts include administrators, teachers, councilors and essential services that, by all accounts, will further gut the quality of education we provide our children; this, at a time when so many are still reeling emotionally and academically from pandemic disruption.
In its meeting this past week, the Regional School Committee rejected this budget and has sent it back to the towns with a request for a 6.5% increase, a difference of just under $500,000. It’s likely the Amherst School Committee will do the same.
Hundreds of families are protesting the proposed budget cuts. These families say that they chose to raise their children in Amherst because of the quality of our schools and have been shocked by the disturbing condition of our facilities and what they perceive as a lack of prioritizing education.
The reasons for where we find ourselves are numerous: deeply unfair charter school, school choice and state funding formulas, declining enrollment (even when accounting for attrition to other schools) while providing services to our special needs population – something we take pride in – takes up more of our budget; not to mention the cost of maintaining deteriorating buildings, among other factors.
Putting the topic of why we are in this situation aside, the vital question we must now ask ourselves is: what choice do we have to increase funding when our children need it, and what are the implications if we make such a choice?
Equal percentage increase funding across departments began in Amherst under Town Meeting. From what I understand, there was conflict when departments, or individual town meeting members, believed they were unfairly funded. Equal-increase funding resolved some of these conflicts.
There is a difference between “equal” and “equitable.” Equal is giving each department the same percentage increase, equitable is giving each department equal consideration as to how we do, or do not, meet their needs – and the concomitant needs of our residents.
No other community in our region uses the “equal” funding structure we employ. Is this a time to reevaluate the way Amherst apportions our taxes? Most families involved in advocating for our schools believe it is. The first response the Town Council had to the huge budget deficit for the schools was to raise the allocation from 3.5% to 4.0% – across all departments. Other departments did not have hundreds of residents protesting for better funding (I don’t know that they even presented urgent arguments for increases above the 3.5%). Families see this as a choice and ask: is this structure something we, as a municipality, could decide to change?
Another structure currently embedded in the way our municipality handles our taxes is budget surpluses. Historically, surpluses and our reserve funds are where the town has found funding for needs above and beyond allocated budgets. There are only two ways to generate a surplus: you overestimate expenses or you underestimate revenues. If you look at a chart of the last 10 years of budget estimates, it is hard not to conclude that over the past 5 years, surpluses – ranging from one to over five million dollars – are being built into our budgets, at the expense of operations. And almost none of those funds reach our schools.
Town Manager Bockelman recently said that he is projecting a $500,000 deficit for this current fiscal year. In nearly the same breath he said that the capital fund (which will be used to pay for a new fire station) currently contains $10 million and that the town is on target to reach its estimated goal of $30 million. Statements like these are deeply confusing to Amherst families who are asking for transparency in how our taxes are being used. We want to know: what choice do we have to use these funds differently? This is not a question of taking funds that are legally mandated (as many grants are) to be used for capital projects and asking for them to be used for programming.
We understand that we need a new fire station but what if we built it on a different schedule? Has every cost-cutting option been fully investigated to possibly combine the DPW and new fire station? Has any sort of cost/benefit analysis been done to look at what would happen if we, as a community, chose to prioritize strengthening our schools as a long-term strategy? The question of housing is also paramount. Has anyone looked at using the Wildwood site for housing? We’re fighting over inadequate resources but within the resources we have, is it an option to choose to prioritize some needs over others? How can we look at those needs and the timing of those needs and avoid gutting the schools while still being fiscally responsible? Is how we’re approaching funding our capital projects written in stone? What choices do we have? And are there other ways of looking at those choices?
When I recently asked a town councilor about the rosy picture painted by the finance committee prior to the town vote to support four concurrent capital projects, his response was “times change.” They do. And so do needs. Does the Town Council and management have the will to approach the challenges facing our schools collaboratively and creatively or are options for creative problem solving foreclosed because of what many families in Amherst see as intransigence?
Families will continue to fight for the former, or many will look for better solutions to educate their children – and our community will suffer.
Nina Mankin grew up in Amherst and moved back 13 years ago to raise her son. She does grant writing and development consulting for not-for-profits and owns a small laundromat in North Amherst where, in addition to learning the ropes of small business ownership, she launched a community laundry program providing free and subsidized use of the laundromat for those in need.
THE AMHERST CURRENT 
While this may be a long shot for many reasons; the Town should create a committee to identify all potential sources of new revenues outside of the property tax. Some suggestions are listed below but there are so many more to raise. This list, while perhaps an academic or aspirational endeavor would offer a full view of revenue potentials so that this then becomes a tool to advocate for new revenues or revenue collection reforms. The creation of this data can be shared with other towns to strengthen their advocacy locally and state wide. For example, other states: (1.) Share or return local user taxes with localities or (2.) Permit local taxation, or (3.) Have shared services between localities. (4.) In the last 5 years New England colleges have significantly enlarged their PILOT payments while, in comparison, we see little revenues locally. (5.) Some states generously reimburse localities for local tax exempt properties. (6.) Does the Town provide services to other entities that deserve greater levels of reimbursement? (7.) Or can the Town continue to afford to offer these services? Nina fairly questions the cost scrutiny for the planned Fire and DPW Center. As a long time advocate for these buildings it is critically important that the costs and locations for these buildings be fairly but firmly analyzed. And yes, can both of these departments be under one roof? The recent construction cost estimate of $65 Million for two buildings deserves serious analysis. Can we afford this? And how do we balance teacher layoffs and curriculum cuts against a never ending Library project? I recently voted at the Amherst High School Gym and by accident saw the Weight Room. I was appalled beyond measure. Do we need a gold plated weight room? No – but what we have speaks to so many larger deficiencies in basic public services and challenges.
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Thanks Terry. Creative new sources of funding are definitely key. The University and colleges need to give more money *specifically* to the public schools.
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Thank you, Nina for this well written piece. The “equal” vs “equitable” allocations is paramount. I grew up in Amherst (prior to / at the cusp of charter schools and school choice), I received an excellent education though ARPS, and returned to raise children. It has been difficult to reconcile my experience with the current state of the schools and (lack of) priority for K-12 public education in Amherst. There are different challenges for the schools than during my ARPS tenure, and I appreciate the clear exploration of options to adapt and not leave our kids behind.
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Thanks Michelle. Until, I believe, the early 2000s, Amherst was ranked #2 of public high schools in the state; Boston Latin was #1. We are now #148 (out of about 400). Boston Latin is still #1 and Chinese Immersion is #2. We have to all fight for these horrible state funding formulas to change – and we need to concurrently support our kids with more funding. ARPS is planning a “day of civic awareness” and students will go to Umass to attend the 3/24 budget hearings (or at least make their presence known there in a rally); a great place to make our voices heard! https://www.mma.org/legislative-local-aid-hearing-coming-in-march/
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The community as a whole would benefit from much more transparency into the municipal side of the town budget. The annual Budget Book has very little in the way of detailed financial information compared to other communities. The Northampton City budget lists detailed departmental information including positions, salaries and whether those positions are funded out of the general fund or grants. It lists details for operating expenses and makes clear how funds outside of the general fund (grants, gifts, etc…) are being used. None of this is clear in the Amherst Budget Book or quarterly reports. At a time when the public is being asked to accept that there is simply no more money and yet we see year over year increasingly large surpluses, it would benefit all of us to have more transparency into the town budget. We may not all agree on how funds should be spent, but we should at least all expect financial transparency so we can have an informed discussion.
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We can write paragraph after paragraph after paragraph on this topic. We can watch as residents are set against residents, because, after all, conflict is so entertaining. The bottom line is the same bottom line that we’ve had for several decades: a town that has, as part of its cultural-political status quo, an aversion, an absolute refusal, to paying close attention to the revenue side of its balance sheet. We are a community that will not decide to find ANY socially and environmentally appropriate ways to increase its tax base. Hadley’s approach to development is held up as the deterring bogeyman, as if there is no other alternative. So we get close to nothing, year after year after year. That is the lasting legacy of Town Meeting, but, to be fair, it’s now the legacy of three Town Councils and this current Town Manager. My belief is that, at the crucial moments (and apparently we’re at one), the taxpayers, and the educational institutions, have to hold our leadership’s feet to the fire and say “show us what you are doing for the future on revenues before you ask for any further tax increases from us, or increases in PILOTs”. The tradition is that we will get crickets on this topic from the higher-ups, because it’s simply not a topic EVER on the agenda here (except as empty lip service at candidate forums). On those occasions when we have the opportunity to make the statement, we taxpayers should refuse to be squeezed in the face of this continuing silence. There’s a reasonable quid pro quo that we taxpayers are not getting from town government, and haven’t gotten for decades.
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