PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With no Chapter 70 information currently available, the school district faces uncertainty in terms of building a budget.

 

The School Committee agreed Wednesday to, if possible, continue an upcoming budget hearing allowing more time to find possible solutions for looming deadlines.

 

"It seems preposterous to put out a budget when we don’t know if we will be funded or not," Chairwoman Kathrine Yon said. "... It is really wild right now."

 

Superintendent Jason McCandless first apologized for having little budget information in hand and said his team has struggled to build a budget without revenue information.

 

McCandless said unlike other districts, two-thirds of the Pittsfield Public Schools' budget is based on state education aid. The district had been crafting a budget based on an anticipated $2.5 million increase in Chapter 70 funding from the Student Opportunity Act.

 

But with the state essentially resetting the budget because of the novel coronavirus, there are questions over this increase and Chapter 70 funding in general. The district now has to craft a new budget with little context.

 

"We went from a year where we thought our biggest challenge would be how do we appropriately spend millions of more dollars," he said. "At this point, I think I could best describe our budget situation as where we were four or five years ago ... looking at how do we use this budget to do the least damage."

 

Assistant Superintendent for Business & Finance Kristen Behnke said the Student Opportunity Act is still on the books but they will not see this increase in the near future.

 

McCandless said thus far they have considered two options: a level services budget and a level-funded budget, which he said was probably the more realistic option. 

 

To maintain just what the school district has now would come with a $1.4 million increase in the fiscal 2021 budget.

 

"Even a level services budget is very unlikely a pipe dream," he said.

 

Mayor Linda Tyer provided some input from the city's side of the budget process and noted that they are really in the same position and at this point, it is not only hard to anticipate losses in city revenues but also state revenues.

 

Tyer has been in contact with state officials and said even the state has yet to propose firm projections needed to build a city budget. With no information, her team plans to build multiple budget scenarios including one based on no state aid. 

 

"We are going to be digging deeper into our municipal operations budgets and looking for areas where we can make reductions. We are going to be putting a pause on things we were hoping to initiate," Tyer said. "As we dug our way out of the fiscal crisis we were in five years ago, so we are right back where we were and we are going to have to make some difficult decisions."

 

Behnke said typically they would see the House Committee on Ways and Means budget in the coming weeks. However, this budget is now slated to be released at the end of May with new Chapter 70 figures. This creates challenges with timelines mandated by the city charter.

 

The School Committee is scheduled to hold a budget hearing next week with a vote scheduled on April 29. This would allow it to make the charter deadline of May 1 but it also means a draft budget would have to be released to the public Monday.

 

Behnke suggested options that would allow the district to be more flexible as new information came out. She suggested just adopting a bottom-line figure they could work with over the coming months.

 

She also suggested adopting a level-funded budget so they have a budget in place.

 

School Committee member William Cameron asked if it was even possible to build a level budget in less than a week.

 

McCandless said although possible, he was hesitant to make public a line-item budget that would include a substantial reduction in force.

 

"This is every bit as bad as we thought it would be except it is worse," he said. "... The only way to make up $1.4 million is a reduction in force and ethically, we would be really challenged to do this in a way that has a very highly specific line item budget ready to roll out and be put in the public record."

 

Cameron also suggested moving to a 1/12 budget that would allow this flexibility. He added that he didn't see the point of voting on a budget that may not be able to be funded.

 

Behnke said a 1/12 budget would be difficult with contractual obligations.

 

Tyer added that the state asked municipalities to consider this scenario and if the city were to adopt a 1/12 budget, the school district would have to do the same. 

 

The mayor said there are possible options on the horizon and the governor is considering an executive order that would allow communities to waive some charter deadlines, allowing the city more time to build a budget once more information is available. She said there is also a proposed plan to start budget timelines only after the state budget is released.

 

McCandless agreed this would be a more favorable option and instead of handing out blanket pink slips they could negotiate deadlines with bargaining units.

 

Tyer suggested continuing the upcoming hearing.

 

She said she would first like to tun the idea past the city solicitor deems this option acceptable.