NORTHFIELD — Following the previous week’s public hearing and feedback from town officials, Pioneer Valley Regional School District administrators presented a revised budget for fiscal year 2024, with reduced town assessments, which was approved Wednesday evening.

The School Committee unanimously approved the $16.82 million budget, a 0.98% decrease from the current year’s budget. The budget entails an overall town assessment hike of 1.03%, a decrease from last week’s projected assessment hike of 2.4%. The budget now heads to Town Meetings for voter approval.

At the public hearing, town officials urged administrators to continue looking at the budget to find ways to make it more efficient and palatable to Pioneer’s member towns.

“We heard from the towns wanting us to focus on specific areas of the budget,” said Director of Finance and Operations Jordan Burns at Wednesday’s School Committee meeting. “We wanted to be receptive to that because, ultimately, the budgeting we do both in the district and the towns is a team sport.”

To decrease assessments, administration slashed several line items in the budget and also appropriated an additional $30,000 of excess and deficiency funds. Excess and deficiency is the balance, whether positive or negative, in a district’s general fund at the end of a fiscal year.

Some expense reductions include reducing both the Bernardston and Northfield elementary schools’ before- and after-school subsidies by $20,000; $5,000 in cuts to the director of teaching and learning, dean of students, and director of finance and operations’ raises; and a $7,273 reduction to Pioneer custodial raises, according to a memo shared by Burns.

“Essentially, for every dollar of (excess and deficiency) you decide to appropriate, it’s a dollar less you need to get from other revenue sources,” Burns explained by phone Thursday. The only other local source of revenue, he noted, are town assessments.

With the appropriation, town assessments decreased by $63,382 overall.

Burns said administrators looked closely at the budget and took the public’s feedback seriously. He noted the budget approved was $90,000 less than the one presented at the public hearing, which is a “big whack of money” this late in the budget cycle, however, the district desires to be “good partners to the towns.”

“Some of the towns were direct in their feedback and we took that feedback seriously,” he said. “We wanted to be receptive and sharpen the pencil, as people said.”

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com or 413-930-4081.

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