AMHERST - The Amherst School Committee has formally requested specific details from school administrators on potential budget cuts - as well as a change of venue for next week's meeting in anticipation of a big community turnout.
The board met briefly Tuesday so that Chairman Andrew Churchill could read aloud a memorandum to interim co-superintendents Alton Sprague and Helen Vivian requesting a prioritized list of potential savings, personnel cuts and the impact on classroom size under several elementary school reconfiguration plans. The board is also asking for estimates of the costs of redistricting and potential cuts in next year's school budget.
About 30 parents and community members attended the meeting, including all three candidates currently running for two seats on the School Committee. More are expected to come to the Feb. 10 meeting when the committee begins debating whether to close Mark's Meadow or otherwise reconfigure the four elementary schools.
Churchill said the committee would seek a great deal of public input before making a decision and probably would not narrow down the choices until a month or so from now, when more is known about how much state aid the schools can expect and how much money from the federal stimulus plan potentially will be targeted to the schools.
School officials have estimated that keeping the schools running would require an increase of 7 to 8 percent in the $20.6 million budget. The schools will instead be aiming to increase the budget by no more than 2 percent over last year. And there is a chance that the budget might have to be even tighter than that, Churchill said, which is why the committee is also asking administrators to outline "worst-case scenarios."
