EASTHAMPTON — Mayor Nicole LaChapelle is proposing a “very prudent” $52.2 million budget for next fiscal year that calls for the addition of staff positions and an increase in expenses in every city department.

The budget proposal for fiscal 2024 represents a 7.6% increase over the current year, which the mayor anticipates will be covered through increases in tax receipts from new construction and other means.

LaChapelle said the budget reflects a number of factors outside of the city’s control, such as inflation, that are driving up the cost of doing business. Among those are local aid funding from the state below the rate of inflation, rising health care costs, and unpredictable energy costs and supply chain issues. If necessary, she said she is open to using money from reserves in coming years year to flatten the “unpredictable fiscal curves of the future.”

“I want to thank all the department head leads for all of their efforts in working with me on this budget to present what I think is a very prudent budget as well as one that follows the values of our city,” LaChapelle said when she presented the budget to the City Council last week.

The mayor said she is keeping an eye on long-term factors that will impact the budget, some of which include rising post-employment benefits, lower retirement contributions due to the city’s demographics and the cost of living, and property values going up due to a scarcity of housing, rental and commercial sites.

“My proposed budget conservatively estimates revenue while keeping expenses focused on modernization and retaining employees,” she said, noting that regional, national and international economic factors are now wildly unpredictable and out of the city’s control. The option of using stabilization funds in the future, she said, “gives Easthampton pliability if faced with unforeseen costs, bonding, capital and labor costs.”

No layoffs, cap spending

LaChapelle gave department heads two directives this budget season: Don’t cut positions or wages, and keep the increase in expenses to 3%. She then met with each department to review requested expenditures unique to each and considered obligated payroll expenses.

“As a result, the departments’ increases are not equal in amount but follow an arc of equity for a municipal budget that reflects Easthampton’s priorities,” she said.

Details of the proposed budget are broken down into 10 categories: general government, public safety, education, public works, human services, culture and recreation, debt, unclassified, Community Preservation Act and enterprise.

The increases in the budget are generally driven by the creation of new positions and contractual pay raises for current employees.

Among those categories, general government is proposed to receive the largest percentage increase, up 22% to $2.85 million. Included in this category are the City Council, mayor and city attorney, licensing, the auditor, assessor, treasurer and central purchasing, technology, collector, human resources, city clerk, elections and registration, planning, and building operations. The Planning Department, for example, will get several new positions.

The proposed budget for human services, which includes the Health Department, the Council on Aging and Veterans Services, would go up about 19% to $895,700. The city expects to hire a part-time veterans agent, and this year created four new positions, including a community social worker and a Council on Aging program manager.

The Department of Public Works budget is proposed to increase by 8.03% to $2.06 million; the Community Preservation Act budget is proposed to increase by 5.73% to $830,000; and culture and recreation, which includes the Easthampton Public Library and Parks and Recreation, is proposed to increase by 12.24% to $720,774.

The unclassified section includes contributory retirement, workers’ compensation, Medicare, employee benefits, liability insurance, the reserve fund and unemployment costs. This section of the budget is proposed to increase by 9.65% to $10.89 million.

Public safety’s proposed budget is $7.3 million, an increase of 9.02% from the previous year. This section of the budget includes police, dispatch and fire and ambulance as well as building inspection services.

Enterprise includes the Sewer, Wastewater and Water departments, as well as the enterprise reserve account. This section of the budget is proposed to increase by 5.11% to $2.9 million.

The lion’s share of the municipal budget, 36.06%, is going toward education, according to LaChapelle’s 114-page budget book. The school district’s budget is proposed to increase by 5.28% to $18.8 million.

The mayor’s proposal matches the school district’s proposal, which was approved by the School Committee on March 28.

Superintendent Allison LeClair described next school year’s budget as being “needs-based,” and one that seeks to align personnel and services as students continue to recover from pandemic-related learning loss and trauma.

School department budget

The current year’s school budget reflects better collaboration than a year ago when the school department wanted $560,000 more than the mayor proposed. The mayor’s budget was eventually approved last year after a tumultuous budget season, and the two sides established a nonbinding “good faith” agreement in an effort to further communicate and collaborate.

The school department still faced a shortfall of about $560,000, which was focused at the time on the district’s tuition costs and increased transportation costs as a result of the location of the new Mountain View School, which combined the city’s three former elementary schools and White Brook Middle School. That shortfall was whittled down to $200,000 throughout the school year, said School Committee member Marin Goldstein.

“We have done the best we can throughout the school year to minimize our costs in order to be able to cover that as much internally as possible, and so we have been able to reduce that significantly,” said Goldstein, who serves as chairperson of the School Committee’s Finance Subcommittee.

At its April 19 meeting, the council unanimously approved a $200,000 supplemental appropriation to cover a deficit in the vocational tuition account.

Nick Bernier, director of business services for the school department, indicated that vocational tuition numbers aren’t released by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education until after budget proposals are turned in. He did note that tuition was increasing for Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School, but didn’t anticipate a large increase in the number of students who would be attending the school in the next fiscal year.

School Committee member Megan Harvey also commented at the meeting, noting that there was a lot of collaborative work put into the 2024 budget and that approving the $200,000 appropriation was one of the last details in the agreement signed by city government and the school department.

“There’s been a lot of questions about transparency and public trust, and I just see this as a moment for our hard work in the past to … be fulfilled and hopefully that will continue to build public trust,” Harvey said.

Outgoing Precinct 5 City Councilor Dan Rist said he was pleased to see the collaboration and efforts to change the unspoken mentality of “us versus them” when it comes to the schools and city government.

“We’re all in this together,” he said. “We’re one community and we all cater to the students that we have to educate. And I like what’s happening now. I like a development that is transparency that is trust between the administration and the school department. And I hope and I also know that there was much better and a good result in communication with the budget process for the next fiscal year.”

Emily Thurlow can be reached at ethurlow@gazettenet.com.]]>