The Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District held their annual budget roundtable on Thursday night. (Photo by Greg Fitzpatrick)
SOUTHWICK – The Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School District held their annual budget roundtable this past week. Along with Superintendent Jen Willard and members of the school committee, Select Board members from Southwick, Granville, and Tolland were also in attendance.
To begin the meeting, Willard discussed the district’s enrollment. According to the SIMS (Student Information Management System) data, the overall enrollment of the district has declined by seven students, with 1,518 in 2018 and 1,511 in 2019. From the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), SIMS is a student-level data collection system that allows DESE to collect information. Willard pointed out that the overall enrollment is the number of actual students in the district right now, which includes school choice students, but not students who live in the district but school choice out of the district.
Looking at the potential impacts to the Fiscal Year 2019-2020 budget, Willard talked about the instructional technology grant that the district received last year, indicating that the $200,000 could be used in the budget.
“We’re really trying to move to a one-to-one school district,” said Willard. “We want technology in our students hands all the time.”
An important potential impact to the upcoming budget could happen if the district decides to spend the $200,000 for technology by leasing it. Currently, the district purchases technology through the capital budget. If the district chose to lease, the technology expenses would go through the operating budget, not the capital budget. Therefore, Willard wanted to remind those in attendance that if the idea of leasing came to fruition, an unusual decrease would occur in the capital budget, but an increase in the operational budget.
Steve Presnal, the Business Manger for the school district, said that the benefit of leasing the technology items would allow the district to return old equipment when they get their new equipment, as they can end up with a lot of outdated technology.
Since the school district is finished with the sewer project, Willard addressed the possible capital improvements for FY 20. Projects noted included paving the Woodland School and Powder Mill School’s front parking lot, as well as repairing or replacing the bus garage roof.
Transportation is at the forefront of another possible capital improvement as the district is looking to purchase two full-size buses and one or two mini buses. Presnal added that due to the increase in transportation requests for next year, that specific part of the budget could cost up to $300,000, up from the typical cost of around $200,000.
Other possible capital improvements Willard would like to see are more bleachers near the track and soccer field in order to create more community spirit around the district during athletic contests.
“To be able to have bleachers out there to be able to sit and enjoy, really creates that community event,” said Willard.
Willard also said that installing a digital sign outside Southwick Regional School would have a positive impact, making it easier and more convenient for people driving by to quickly figure out what’s going on at the school.
“It really helps with getting your message out there to the community,” said Willard.
The last area of the budget that Willard brought forth to the town officials was the playground project at Powder Mill School that is underway. Right now, the district has $100,000 in approved capital, along with $15,000 in private fundraising.
Willard also said that the design process for the project is underway as they recently hired Tighe & Bond to conduct the engineering portion of the project. The project consists of upgrading the playground at Powder Mill and making it more accessible and safer for the students. The district will also be looking to make the playground handicap accessible and have some shade created near the playground for the warmer school days in the spring and summer. Willard also said that the school district will be meeting with the Community Preservation Committee in January to request additional funds from them for the playground project.
