BELCHERTOWN — The deficit for Belchertown’s preliminary level-service budget for fiscal year 2027 is less than $500,000, a major improvement from last year’s multimillion dollar fiscal cliff.
On Monday night, the Select Board, School Committee and Finance Committee met for the first in a series of budget meetings for next fiscal year, which begins July 1. As of now, the budget is projected to be $60.9 million, roughly $414,000 below calculated expenses.
“I don’t remember that last time we’ve seen this low of a deficit on the first round, so really we are in a pretty good position,” Town Accountant Jill Rossi said.
The target budget for the school department is $36.3 million, while all other town departments total a combined $13.9 million. Before the next tri-board meeting in March, the town will need to shave about $199,000 from the budget, and the school department will cut $215,000 from its finances.
Budget break down
The largest projected increases in next year’s budget involve a rise in health insurance costs and a jump in the public safety budget, Rossi said.
Last year, a $1.6 million budget shortfall within the school department led to voters narrowly approving a $2.9 million Proposition 2½ override. The override money is buying the school department a year to plan for the closure of Cold Spring School, while also allowing the town to keep six firefighters and pay for an ambulance lease previously funded by expiring grants. The leftover override funds, about $559,921, will go toward emergency services in fiscal year 2027.
Next year’s budget also aims to reimburse a third of the money taken from its Stabilization Fund to cover the unexpected $911,000 rise in health insurance costs during the middle of the current fiscal year. After a 40% increase last year in insurance rates, Town Administrator Steve Williams said the town is bracing for another 16% to 20% raise next fiscal year.
The Select Board is currently in the process of comparing other insurance plans, like the Group Insurance Commission and Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association, to find the best option for next year.
The town used half of the available free cash to supplement the operating budget. A few years ago, town leadership began moving away from using free cash to supplement operational costs, moving to earmark 20%, then 40%, for savings and capital projects. This year, Williams suggests splitting free cash fifty-fifty, with $592,504 toward the operational budget, $385,128 for capital expenses, $177,751 for Stabilization and $29,625 for other post employment benefits (OPEB).
School expenses
Superintendent Brian Cameron presented the target budget for fiscal 2027 at a School Committee on Feb. 3. The budget is a 2.4% increase over last year’s $35.5 million budget. Next year’s expenses do not include operation costs and salaries for Cold Spring School, which will close by June 30, 2026.
“They gave us another year to do this, so we hired a lot of one-year positions, so educators knew that [they’d] only be teaching in Belchertown for one year,” Cameron said last week. “People will be reassigned but I think one person will be affected by this because we planned for retirements. We planned for one year.”
Closing Cold Spring saved the department roughly $950,500. Half of the reductions are from operational costs and 15 position layoffs, and the other half come from the one-year positions that will end in June. Besides one person, no other first grade through eight grade staff will be impacted by the change, Cameron said.
As a result of Cold Spring’s closure, pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students will move into Swift River Elementary School next year, which would become a pre-K through second grade school. The third grade currently at Swift River will move to Chestnut Hill Community School, which will house third through fifth grades. The sixth grade, currently at Chestnut Hill, will move to Jabish Brook Middle School, which will be home to grades 6-8.
Enrollment continued on a downward decline last year, shrinking from 2,064 students to 1,965 students between the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years. Despite the shrink, School Committee member Jake Hulsberg said the drop is not enough to decrease the number of classrooms.
“When schools have declining enrollment, it doesn’t always save the town money because you have to keep those classrooms open,” he said.