WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to send its member towns a fiscal year 2026 spending plan that calls for increases of about 7 percent in the assessment to Lanesborough and 8 percent in the assessment to Williamstown.

 

The committee's annual public hearing and vote on a spending plan for the next academic year concludes a process that began in earnest for the panel in December.

 

That is when the School Committee first heard the budget requests from the middle-high school. At its January meeting, it heard the budget priorities for the district's two elementary schools.

 

The budget approved on Thursday reflects some of the requests from each of the three schools, but the majority of the $1.37 million hike to the district's gross operating budget is related to cost increases outside the district's control, interim Superintendent Joseph Bergeron explained.

 

A so-called level service budget, with no increase in discretionary spending, would drive nearly $1 million of that $1.37 million, Bergeron explained.

 

The non-discretionary increases include $550,000 related to a 16 percent increase in the district's health insurance costs, $340,000 for "contractual obligations, borrowing, transportation and supplies/services cost increases" and a reading specialist position at Mount Greylock that is driven by demand for special education.

 

As for costs that fall outside the concept of a level-service budget, the FY26 spending plan includes more money for 1-to-1 paraprofessionals ($100,000), a new elementary school math curriculum to replace one that is nearly 30 years old ($90,000) , classroom projectors for four classrooms at Lanesborough Elementary School ($30,000), expanded professional development for staff in math and literacy ($56,700) and the addition of two new teachers at Mount Greylock, one in Spanish and one in the Wellness Department.

 

All those changes have been discussed at length by the School Committee in the past.

 

It was noted on Thursday evening that not all of the new positions at the middle-high school will result in additional full-time teaching positions from a budget standpoint. Bergeron said the new full-time Spanish position will have an effective 0.6 full-time equivalent impact on the budget and the new wellness teacher will be, effectively, a 0.8 FTE increase.

 

School Committee Chair Julia Bowen pointed out that adding a teacher to Mount Greylock's physical education and health department will actually benefit other academic departments at the middle-high school because Mount Greylock has had to rely on pulling teachers from other academic areas to cover wellness classes.

 

"The wellness position is restoring staff in multiple departments," Bowen said. "It's not that wellness is being prioritized and growing. … But the wellness staffing is technically staying the same. The increase is happening in those other departments as they get their people back."

 

One of the main tradeoffs in the budget Bergeron highlighted is one that is liable to anger some families in the district. Along with the additional Spanish teacher, the district will begin phasing out its other world language offering. Starting in September Mount Greylock will not offer Latin to seventh-graders or Latin 1 to high schoolers looking to switch languages or pick up a second world language.

 

Bergeron has talked at length in the past about how demand by students has shifted away from Latin and toward Spanish. On Tuesday, he reiterated the point.

 

"It's not that we don't have the staff to offer it, it's that demand has dropped precipitously over the years," Bergeron said. "With class sizes as small as they are in Latin, we know we need to direct resources to a department [Spanish] that has, instead of seven or eight students in a class, 27 students in a class."

 

A similar proposal to phase out Latin last year drew a strong turnout from parents and graduates of Mount Greylock arguing that the School Committee should save the language. And it did, for at least a year, by directing the administration to spend more from the district's reserves to keep the program going.

 

On Thursday, just one member of the public criticized the move.

 

Williamstown resident Liz Creighton told the committee she was disappointed in the move to "phase out Latin and the decision to prioritize wellness over the arts."

 

Some town officials in Williamstown and Lanesborough — and the voters who ultimately will vote on the school budget at the towns' annual town meetings — might be disappointed to see the largest year-over-year increase in assessments in recent memory.

 

Bergeron said there are several reasons for the $436,938 (6.82 percent) increase to Lanesborough and $1,092,623 (7.96 percent) increase to Williamstown from the fiscal year that ends on June 30.

 

The biggest factor is the hike in expenditures. But the district also is relying less on its dwindling reserves than it has in years past. Starting about four or five years ago, the district, in response to requests from the towns' Finance Committees, started offsetting potential property tax increases by spending from what were then more ample reserves.

 

The FY26 budget forecasts an ending balance for the district's three reserve accounts (tuition revenue, School Choice and excess and deficiency) of just more than $809,000 – less than the $1 million in reserves that Bergeron (also the district's finance director) feels is appropriate as a hedge against unanticipated expenses that come up during a fiscal year.

 

Finally, the higher local assessments to the two towns stems, in part, from outside revenue not keeping up with inflation.

 

"We're seeing a 1.26 percent increase, $72,000, [in state aid] in the governor's budget," Bergeron said. "There are very few things in this world that have only increased in price by 1.26 percent in the last year."

 

Meanwhile, about 3 percent of the district's budget comes from federal funding like Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grants and USDA funding tied to school nutrition.

 

"Right now, we're not hearing any definite decreases in our funding level," Bergeron said.

 

That said, signals out of Washington, D.C., indicate that cuts may be coming to any number of federal programs.

 

Bergeron, Bowen and School Committee member Carolyn Greene presented the district's draft spending plan to the Williamstown Finance Committee on Wednesday, one day before the budget was officially passed by the committee.

 

Bergeron reported to the panel on Thursday that the whole picture — the non-discretionary cost increases, the needed investments to fill out the staff at the middle-high school, the scaling back of contributions from the district's reserves and state aid that does not keep up with inflation — made a compelling case to the Williamstown officials.

 

"It felt like a unanimous body of support," Bergeron said of the Williamstown Fin Comm. "They did not take a vote as part of their process on Wednesday, but all the questions were leaning toward, 'Oh, this is justified because … ‘

 

"It was as warm a reception as you can get when you bring a budget that says, 'Here's a 7.9 percent increase, and that's double [the increase] you've done in recent years."