SUPERINTENDENT DR. JOHN BARRY
SOUTHWICK – Superintendent of Schools John Barry assured the Board of Selectmen last night that the Fiscal Year 2015 school district budget would be lean.
“It’s incumbent upon us to have a very conservative budget,” said Barry. “No new initiatives, no new programs, no new staff. It’s our intent to keep [the budget] as reasonable as possible.”
Barry and the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School Committee acknowledged that taxpayers in all three towns are bearing the costs of the campus renovations and they want to keep the budget tight.
Southwick Chief Administrative Officer Karl Stinehart asked if they planned a level service budget. Barry said they did hope to have level service or better.
“Where we can see savings, I want to be aggressive about that,” Barry said.
The two boards met yesterday in the superintendent’s conference room to have a preliminary budget discussion.
“It’s really early but our purpose is to get a feeling from you on how to proceed,” Barry said. “We’re in the beginning of the process.”
Barry and School Business Manager Stephen Presnal gave budget directives to principals and program directors already. They expect to receive initial reports by Christmas and will have more information by the time the selectmen and finance committee host budget meetings in early February.
Barry said while the budget projection in February will be closer to reality, it will be more of a “summary” of the budget.
“We may have House One by then,” Barry said, referring to the governor’s early prediction of state funds for schools.
Barry and Presnal said those numbers change and the February budget will not be the final budget.
As far as projected cuts, Barry said they know they will lose one position.
“We will lose a grade five position – we know that,” he said. “We will go from six fifth grade classes to five.”
Selectmen Russell Fox and Joseph Deedy asked about the future of Granville Village School. Barry said originally they had thought grades seven and eight would move to the Southwick campus next year.
“I think in FY16 it’s about 99 percent that Granville will be a K-6 school,” said Barry.
Barry said they decided to wait another year to bring the middle school students to Southwick because the new middle/high school should be open by then. Rather than transfer students to Powdermill Middle School next year and then the new combined school the year after, they opted to make it easier on the students with one transition.
Barry said the five-year plan for Granville Village School has it remaining open as a K-6 school and that continues to be the plan. If the population there dwindles, it will be revisited.
