The schools are considering cuts at the Tier 3 level, which includes 4 athletic programs, a library paraprofessional, a high school teacher and several part-time teachers.
SOUTH HADLEY — The $19,819,610 budget proposed by the South Hadley School Department for fiscal year 2013 has been whittled down by the School and Appropriations Committees, but Interim Schools Superintendent Christine Swecklo said more expenses may be on the way.
The School Committee made cuts that brought the number down to $19,658,322. The Appropriations Committee has reduced it further to $19,636,976.
Two classroom teacher positions, one at Mosier Elementary School and one at South Hadley High School, are being eliminated because of a decline in student population, but seven part-time personnel are being added.
Part-timers are measured in percentages. For example, an autism specialist is being added to the district at 0.4 of a full-time load. As a result, even with two full-time teachers gone, the schools will have added 0.8 teachers.
The budget will be voted on at Town Meeting on May 12. Committees working on the school budget made cuts based on a three-tiered system presented by the School Department.
Tier 1 represented the least essential items on the budget, such as repairs on the gym floor at Smith Middle School and stipends for professional development programs.
In some cases the item was a reduction rather than an elimination. For example, the heating budget will cost less because the schools received a lower bid this year, and tuition for South Hadley students who take classes at Smith Vocational will go down because Smith lowered tuition.
Tier 2 included such items as chair replacements at the Middle School. Those are gone, too.
So now the schools are looking at Tier 3, which includes four athletic programs (such as the wrestling team), a library paraprofessional, a high school teacher and several part-time teachers.
The wild card in any school budget is the special education budget. The state mandates that disabled students have the right to be educated in the least restrictive environment possible.
That means providing special education teachers, custom-made lesson plans and other expensive adaptations.
Fortunately, the state helps with the expense by allotting what educators call “circuit-breaker” funds, though these only reimburse a fraction of the cost.
Swecklo said she recently had a special ed student added to the district who will require $100,000 to educate, and she may or may not have other special ed students coming in who would add up to $200,000 in expenses.
“Nothing is definite,” she said. “We have to keep our eyes on the radar screen.”
The School Committee will meet Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at the high school library.