AMHERST — Each year, in the months leading up to the development and release of the budget for the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools, representatives from the four member communities gather together at the invitation of school officials to discuss school funding at one or more “four-town” meetings.

With increasing difficulties for each of the four towns in supporting the regional budget, and no anticipation of these going away, Town Council President Lynn Griesemer and District 1 Councilor Cathy Schoen are floating the idea of creating the Four Towns Fiscal Sustainability Task Force, which, according to a memo they drafted, would “create a common understanding of the fiscal realities for each of the four municipalities (Amherst, Leverett, Pelham, and Shutesbury) so that they can develop a sustainable fiscal strategy to support the full range of local services over the next five and 10 years.”

At the Town Council’s April 28 meeting, Griesemer said she has been talking to those who chair the Select Boards and finance committees in the neighboring towns, finding there is a “a shock” at the assessment increases for fiscal year 2026, and concern about where these go in the future.

“It’s not just an Amherst conversation in their mind, it’s a four-towns regional conversation,” Griesemer said.

Schoen said the task force could be a vehicle for more focused discussions, and also lead to a more streamlined process of having questions answered, with the basic starting point being expenses rising faster than revenues.

The proposal comes as councilors and school committee members also are discussing creation of Long-Range Fiscal Impacts Task Force, proposed by District 5 Councilor Ana Devlin Gauthier, Regional School Committee Chairwoman Sarahbess Kenney, of Pelham, and Amherst School Committee Chairwoman Jennifer Shiao.

Under the Griesemer and Schoen proposal, the panel would involve leadership of each of the four towns, with 15 members drawn from the Select Boards, Town Council, finance committees, town manager and town administrators, along with the superintendent and town and school finance directors.

“It is our hope that by having this public discussion we can also create a broader understanding of municipal finance and educational finance both within Amherst and across the four towns. All of this is necessary as we join together in advocating to our state legislators for increased support,” Griesemer and Schoen wrote.

Griesemer said the regional agreement between the four towns doesn’t have a way to form such a committee, though, but similar committees have existed previously, such as when there were discussions about creating a full K-12 school district, rather than only being regionalized grades 7-12.

“I think these are critical questions and I think we have not been answering these questions all along,” Griesemer said.

But Griesemer said there would also be a process for Amherst to look broadly at its revenues and expenditures in a longer timeframe than the annual budget process.

“There’s a whole thing embedded in this that’s a serious question and a serious set of issues that this council and our finance committee need to wrestle with,” Griesemer said.

Councilors had mixed reaction to the proposal.

“I think it’s clear this is a problem we can’t solve by ourselves, we very much need the other towns,” District 3 Councilor George Ryan said, adding that there appears to be genuine interest in starting the talks. “Time is of the essence. I can’t overstress the urgency of this.”

District 1 Councilor Ndifreke Ette said it’s challenging to get a discussion going, especially at the four-towns meetings. “Something I think would be helpful is if we could have a facilitator for whoever is going to be part of this committee,” Ette said.

At Large Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke said problems with the four-towns meetings are that most officials have no knowledge of what is being presented and limited time to respond to it. Hanneke said the relationship is also complicated by Town Council, whose members have more authority than Select Boards and finance committees in the smaller towns, which can only make recommendations to Town Meetings, which act as their legislatures.

Hanneke said she is concerned that a topic like setting financial guidelines that determine the percentage increase Amherst will provide in its regional schools assessment not be addressed by the task force or have input from Pelham, Leverett and Shutesbury officials. “They should not have a say in that,” Hanneke said.

“One of the biggest issues I see is we’ve been able to kick the can down the road where our expenses are outpacing revenues, and we can’t do it anymore,” said District 5 Councilor Bob Hegner, who chairs the Amherst Finance Committee.

He cautioned, though, that councilors in Amherst and officials in other towns have no authority to tell schools what they should do for budgets over the next 10 years.

“Now you understand the dilemma of trying to get anything done with four towns, where the only thing we have in common is the high school, is, the (grades) 7-12,” Griesemer said.

At the Regional School Committee meeting that also took place last week, Kenney said she took in what was said at the Town Council meeting, observing that Amherst councilors want the four-towns meeting to be more of a joint meeting than one led by school officials. But she is pleased that several task forces and committee ideas are being contemplated and “that there are some good bones to work with” in the various proposals to share information and understanding.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.