Berkshire Hills RSD approves FY ’14 budget

GREAT BARRINGTON – By two 9-1 votes, the Berkshire Hills Regional School District fiscal year 2014 budget has been approved by the school committee to go forward to its three member towns.

The total FY ’14 budget (operating and capital) for the district is $22,387,500, a 2.89 percent ($629,387) increase over FY ’13.

“I think it’s a reasonable budget that we have established,” said School Committee Member Frederick Clark.

The operating budget comes in at $20,063,385, a 2.79 percent ($545,272) increase. Of that number, $16,388,317 in total will be assessed to Great Barrington, Stockbridge and West Stockbridge.

The remaining $2,001,094 makes up the district’s capital budget, $781,483 of which will be assessed to the member towns. The capital budget is down 28.95 percent ($815,487) from the current budget.

Altogether, the town assessments total $17,169,800, a 0.27 percent ($45,830) increase over FY ’13. Great Barrington is responsible for $12,053,039; Stockbridge, $2,541,359; and West Stockbridge, $2,575,401.

Mr. Clark, the only member of the school committee who voted against the budget approvals, cited an “assessment imbalance” amongst the three towns as his reasoning behind not approving the budget.

Great Barrington has a 3.92 percent ($454,320) increase in its assessment, while Stockbridge and West Stockbridge have respective decreases of 5.15 percent ($137,987) and 9.5 percent ($270,503).

As in other regional school districts (such as Central Berkshire and Southern Berkshire), the towns are assessed different portions of the budget based on enrollment and a state-determined net minimum contribution number, meaning the assessments are, for the most part, out of the hands of local officials.

Retiree insurance

Also at the school committee’s March 7 meeting, increases in the retiree payment shares (at an average of approximately five percent) for health insurance were approved.

Retirees on the Blue Care Elect – PPO will have to pay 21.25 percent in FY ’14 as opposed to the 15 percent they are now paying; Blue Choice NE – POS, 20 percent as opposed to 15 percent; and Network Blue NE – HMO 12.75 percent as opposed to eight percent.

Both Mr. Clark and Christine Shelton were opposed to this change.

“I believe that is not fair and not right,” Mr. Clark said.

Posted by Catherine M. Krummey on March 14, 2013. Filed under Education News,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry