Greenfield’s City Council Looks For Potential School Funding Sources

(Greenfield, MA) Wednesday’s City Council meeting ran until the early minutes of Thursday morning with a full agenda of budget items, presentations from city officials and public comment. Although last night’s votes are on capitol improvement items, the Greenfield Public School operating budget was on many people’s minds.

Mayor Wedegartner said it was difficult to put together this year’s budget citing a decrease in state financial aid as public school enrollment is down and that she must think of all the residents’ and departments’ needs and wants when working to create a balanced budget. She also noted that the budget was a “moment in time” and that further funds may become available for use in supplemental budgets as this fiscal year’s final numbers come in.

“Don’t make me the enemy,” said Mayor Wedegartner, adding that she was open to hearing more ideas for finding the funding the Superintendent requested in her budget.

Residents spoke in public comment about the importance of programs that may be cut due to the school’s budget constraints including “Strings for Kids,” which Councilor Marianne Bullock also spoke on saying her younger child was looking forward to joining after her elder child participated in the program.

Multiple residents said Greenfield may be at risk of losing residents and enrollment numbers decreasing further if the schools do not have the funding they need to retain teachers and extracurricular programs.

It was after  9 p.m. when public comment closed and councilors moved onto other agenda items including voting on capitol improvement appropriations. Councilors voted unanimously to transfer $375,000 from Contract Stabilization and $206,850 from Free Cash for a total of $581,850 to Greenfield Public Schools Salaries and Wages to fund settled contracts.

The Ways and Means subcommittee will be discussing the school budget at their upcoming meeting on April 24th and may discuss making recommendations to the Mayor for further school funding from appropriations that were defeated in Wednesday’s City Council meeting. Defeated appropriations include funding for a stairwell roof at the Police Station, replacing the roof at the old library, and a reduction from $185,000 to $50,000 for the Rocky Mountain/Highland Trail Way Finding Map Development.