Thursday, April 30, 2015

Smoke and Mirrors Savings?

Amherst Pelham Regional School Committee 4/28/15

The Amherst Regional School Committee spent the better part of two hours hearing a presentation and then discussing the financial aspects of expanding the current four town grades 7-12 Region all the way down to pre-Kindergarten.

The presentation assumed all four towns (Amherst, Pelham, Leverett, and Shutesbury) agree to expand the Region, a pretty BIG assumption, and the bottom line savings presented -- a BIG incentive it would seem -- came to $662,113.  Or did it?

 Powerpoint slide presented to RSC

Both the $300,000 in "Medicaid Reimbursement" and the $55,000 in "New Choice-In Revenue" is money that comes to the town of Amherst anyway, so it's not "new" revenue.  

Since the state does not reimburse non-regional entities for transportation costs the $286,695 in "New Transportation Reimbursement"  is indeed "new money." 

Even the $75,800 in "New Bonus Aid" comes with a caveat:  It's only for five years and diminishes over that time:

Year 1 - $75,800 
Year 2 - $60,640
Year 3 - $45,480
Year 4 - $30,320
Year 5 - $15,160

So when all is said and done the real savings in year one of Mega-Region (3,385 students) comes to $307,113 or less than $100 student on an average per pupil cost of over $20,000. Providing of course all goes according to plan and you can avoid Murphy's Law.

Representatives from Pelham and Leverett also presented testimony to the Regional School Committee that painted a desperate picture of their elementary school's current financial condition.

Chair of the Regional Agreement Working Group (and now Amherst Select Board member) Andy Steinberg echoed that gloomy scenario saying he is concerned that someday soon our partners in the current 7-12 Region will choose to support their stand alone elementary schools at the expense of the Region. 

Amherst beware: A major deal based on pity often goes astray. 


13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought I remembered reading ages ago that savings would be significant, in part because amherst now has to pay the other towns whenever an Amherst student choices into Leverett, Pelham or Shutesbury. Is that true? If no significant savings, what's the benefit?

Larry Kelley said...

Choice is only $5,000 per student.

The real killer cost to Amherst -- and by extension would still impact the Region -- is Charter School and Vocational School reimbursements at around $18,000 per student.

This coming Fiscal Year that totals a whopping $540,000.

Anonymous said...

Imagine if Amherst focused on having a killer school system, then parents wouldn't be pulling their kids out of the system any way they can for better choices. Strike that... makes too much sense.

Anonymous said...

There are families that could do a lot more with that $100 than the schools. Imagine a poor family where $100 could make the difference between just noodles and some frozen veggies a few dozen times a year for their kids. My sense is that there is not a single Amherst teacher or staff member that does not get veggies when they want them....but the families that sacrifice income and property to finance them, not so much.

More savings would be great. Couldn't the town just vote the budget to $10k or something more typical. Then the school will just have to find a way to deal with it. It is clear that more money does not beget better education (or better students/future workers).

Larry Kelley said...

I think state average is around $15K per student, so both our average Elementary ($20,500) and Regional School ($21,297) costs next Fiscal Year are a tad out of whack.

Anonymous said...

It seems the system is rigged in favor of rich parents that take their kids out of the schools where they live. It's exactly like corporations offshoring their operations while reaping the benefits of U.S. consumers. I don't see why this "choice" business is allowed. It should be take it or leave it - you live there, that's where you can go to school for free. Everything else, pay full freight. And is there any way the town can sue that
chinese school for stealing our money? They just built a huge building partly with AMHERST taxpayer dollars.

Anonymous said...

If regionalization does not save money (or very little), why do it? The small towns need to deal with their financial situation and declining enrollments head on. Why burden Amherst taxpayers with their money problems? If they each can't afford to their small elementary school, why not close one and combine with another town? Amherst closed Marks Meadow and may close Fort River.

Anonymous said...

Correct me if I'm wrong: but the Chinese Immersion school is a charter school, which is simply another kind of public school in Massachusetts. So save the lawyers for something else.

Anonymous said...

To have a killer school system, you'd have to begin by getting rid of the liberal agenda into which the kids are being indoctrinated. But of course, that's exactly what the parents seem to want. So..well..forget it!

Anonymous said...


The Wildwood School Building Committee is currently looking at the future of Wildwood, & considering three main options: 1) renovate the existing Wildwood building, 2) building a new school, & 3) reorganizing the district by having two elementary schools, one pre-K through 1st gr & one 2nd through 6th gr, & building a new 2nd-6th gr school.

How does the possibility elementary school regionalization fit into the Wildwood building study or does it not. Pelham, Leverett, & Shutesbury all have nice elementary schools that all have enrollments under capacity at the moment & no big population & student growth is expected in these towns.

With regionalization might it make sense to send some Amherst kids to these other schools, especially Pelham which is so close to an Amherst elementary school, instead of building a big new elementary building just for Amherst.

The Amherst school district is quite modest in how it expects the number of students to decline over time. I would not be surprised if the enrollment figures drop fasted than projected. For the FY2016 budget, it is projected that only a handful of new kids from Amherst will be attending the Chinese Charter school next year. I would expect that the number who actually enroll could be much larger than this especially since Amherst is now phasing out the teaching of Chinese at the middle school. I have heard that PVCIS offers better math education than the Amherst schools as well. PVCIS uses Singapore Math.

Anonymous said...

In looking the costs of charter & voc education, isn't the real cost to Amherst & other ARPS towns the net assessed tuitions for these alternative schools (assessed tuition minus reimbursement)?

According to the ARPS FY2016 budget documents, for FY16 it is projected that 72 elementary school age students from Amherst & 83 MS & HS students from the ARPS region will attend charter schools next year. The total net tuition assessment for charter schools for MS & HS-aged students is projected to be $1.163 million for FY2016 ($14,000 per student).

For Voc Tech, for FY16, it is projected that 55 ARPS region students will enroll in tech schools such as Smith Voke or FC Tech, & the total tuition will be $1.049 million.

Combined these costs are millions of dollars. I wish they were only $540,000.

The FY2016 regional budget indicates that "the total increase projected for FY2016 related to tuition for vocational schools, charter schools, and school choice is $540,000."

Anonymous said...

According to the amherst TM handbook, from fy2015 those charter and Voc costs are paid by the town, hopefully the rationale behind this change in budgeting will be discussed at the next TM, as it can distort the current budget proposal (how much is it really changing if off-loading a large item onto the town budget) and where is it in the town budget?

Anonymous said...

What is Singapore math?? I use Holyoke math. U?