SOUTHWICK – Superintendent John Barry and Business Manager Stephen Presnal continue to crunch numbers to create a balanced budget for the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District.
The school committee was updated this week on the latest figures, which included a $391,000 gap between revenues and expenditures.
The state numbers came in after the update, and Presnal is now reconfiguring the budget once again.
Presnal had anticipated a 1.5 percent increase in assessments for the three towns that comprise the district.
“That’s 1.12 percent for Southwick, 1.42 percent for Tolland, and 1.48 percent for Granville,” Barry told the committee. “We purposely considered a modest increase, not knowing what the state would do.”
The budget reflects level funding and shifting of funds between schools over past years because of the grade changes.
Presnal said the high school has the largest budget with the inclusion of grades seven and eight. Woodland School’s budget decreased because two grades moved to powder Mill, and Granville Village School’s budget also decreased with the move of grades seven and eight. `
The energy budget increased by an expected $180,000.
“We are at the conclusion of a five-year arrangement that has advantageous gas rates, and our electric contract is also up,” said Presnal.
Barry said there are no new positions in the budget but there is a differential for a data managament position.
“There aren’t any drastic changes in class size,” said Barry. “It’s really trying to do next year what we’ve done this year with new grade configurations.”
Barry said there were not cuts to essentials and a final budget should be ready soon.
