Today we continue our fact checking of school committee candidates’ statements from the October 27 candidate forum. Greenfield People’s Budget is an independent group and not affiliated with any campaign. However, we want local government that is transparent and responsive to the needs of regular people in Greenfield. For that reason we encourage you to vote for Adrienne Craig-Williams, Jeffrey Diteman, and Elizabeth DeNeeve. Their opposing candidates (Melodie Goodwin, Mike Terounzo, and David Moscaritolo) also claim to fight for these same values, but their votes, actions, and words in public meetings paint a different picture.
Claim
Goodwin, Terounzo, and Moscaritolo all claim that Greenfield schools hoard money and don’t spend it on education for our children, taking an unfair share of the city budget.
What’s the real story?
Fact: Justifying the mayor’s cuts to schools
The mayor justified her $2 million cuts to the school budget based on the idea that GPS is hoarding excessive cash reserves across a few revolving accounts, a claim that Goodwin, Terounzo, and Moscaritolo are repeating.
Fact: There is no $5 million balance
Revolving accounts for special education, school choice, and transportation had a $5.3 million balance at one time, but that balance didn’t reflect all the bills to be paid. Money comes in from different sources at different times. Expenses are incurred regularly but in some cases only get reconciled twice per year, creating fluctuations in statement balances. It’s like looking at your bank account on payday: there might be money there, but you still have to pay your bills.
Those revolving accounts can only be used for specific purposes.
The largest balance has always been in the Circuit Breaker account, which is state funding with strict rules for use and limits on reserves. Circuit Breaker funds can only be used to offset the costs of the highest-need special education students, which often means paying other districts to provide special education services that GPS can’t provide. For that reason, the Circuit Breaker reserves should never have been part of the debate.
Current estimates are that these revolving accounts (excluding Circuit Breaker) will reconcile to about $2.7m at the end of FY25 (last year; the books are not closed yet) and $1.5m at the end of FY26 (this year), according to the September revolving funds report (see p.3 here) and allowing for updates from October (see below on $308k in additional special ed costs).
School finances are very different from municipal finances because they are covered by different laws. The Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993 granted school departments much more flexibility in how they manage finances, and these differences have caused friction and misunderstandings in many other city governments, as well.
Fact: GPS needs reserves
Because of surprise expenses and funding shortfalls, it’s best practice to keep reserves on hand to avoid emergency financial orders. A single student with high needs who moves into the district could require up to $1m in services. It’s impossible to budget for that possibility, so you need significant reserves. Without reserves, the schools might need a mid-year emergency financial order, creating serious risk for city finances.
GPS was not able to build up these recommended reserves until we received one-time COVID relief (“ESSER”) funding. The state encouraged districts to use relief funds to build up reserves (among other things) rather than spend it on regular operations. By following that recommendation, GPS softened the financial problems that other districts (such as Northampton) have suffered since COVID funding was cut off.
Superintendent Patenaude was also clear in her comments that she was cautious about spending reserves in FY26 (this school year) because 1) there is a serious threat that all federal funding could be cut at any time, which would be a loss of $1.5m to the district; and 2) Mayor Desorgher was warning that FY27 (next year) would likely be a harder budget year for the city, not least due to federal cuts.
Fact: GPS is already spending down reserves
GPS plans on spending down reserves by about $1.3 million this year, including $308k for services for a high-needs student that just moved to the district. That amount could increase significantly depending on who moves here.
- For more information see the business manager’s update on these account balances on p. 3 of the September School Committee meeting materials, and see meeting video for explanation. Note this update was before receiving news of the additional $308k in costs later in September.
We agree school finance is complicated, but it’s too easy to insinuate that complicated things are corrupt.
Our kids don’t need witch hunts and attacks on school funding. Our kids do need collaborative leaders advocating for better state funding to get the resources we deserve.