So, I thank you for your time and I'll turn it over to Shannon. >> Thank you, DA. Um so I have up on the screen the oper the draft operating budget for FY27 and essentially this is level services. There are um no reductions that we'll speak about um further in this presentation um excluded or included in these numbers just yet. Um so at the top we have our salaries and those are increases due to um steps and colas. Um and we have our substitute line and our contract line. Our contracts line is um end of or the extended summer programming for special education, our band monitors, um our um athletic trainer, things of those sorts fallen to the contracts line in regular um actually if we move down to the expense accounts um these are nonp payroll lines. So not salaries are not being paid from these lines.
Now, that's a sad number, but it might be a sad number, but it's normal, it's everywhere. Some places have a larger tax share or a larger tax base because the taxes were consistently increased over time and we'll get that's the one of the last things I'll talk about, but I think it's important that we get it all out here now because when the hearing does come in a few weeks, I know there'll be more people here to, you know, put their concerns in, but I'm hope hopefully as this is recorded, you can hear it first hand before this board makes any additional cuts. So, we do cut from any of this, if the board's desire, which I'm pretty sure as of what I've seen for the last 2 years, programs, things that are influential to students, graduation pathways, all those things, we want to keep those intact, right?
And I'll just hit a few um that have some increases here. Um so special education, we have an increase in um out of district tuition and transportation for those students and the the rates for the out of district placements go up every year and those rates are set by the OSC office. And in other programs from the last time we met, we've had an increase in here since the preliminary estimates came out from DESIE. Um so there's an increase to our charter and there's an increase to our um school choice assessment as well as a um estimate increase for our vocational tuition as well. Another spot um with a larger increase is within our central administration. Um that's largely due to our legal fees. Um but we also our audits have gone up each year. So we've accounted for that. Um we've and our um HR platform for uh rolling out the um records and our professional learning that is included in here as well.
We don't want to affect the kids, that's why we're all here. So, in order to do that, we have to reduce that 80% number, that 80% line, which unfortunately is staffing, etc. But I but I think it's important right now as we go into these next 2 weeks of making a little bit more cuts to to kind of make you understand this because I'm not saying that Garfield hasn't cut in the past but this is not your traditional oh, okay, all the non-tenured people are going. That's not how this works. Okay? So, I'll give you a great example. If the board desires to keep a German program, right? They want kids to speak German in um uh Garfield then the new German teacher that we just hired last year is not going to get cut. She could be the first or he could be the first person in, but if you want to keep German.
Um we have our we're entering our second year of our transportation contract. So we have an increase for that. Um our utilities are aligned with what our actuals that we're seeing for FY26. So we have increases in there as well. Um, food service is empty here because food service is fully funded by a revolving fund. So, nothing related to food services within the operating budget. We also have an increase of health insurance as you know it started out high as a projection and we're down to 8 and a half%. Um, we've removed the maintenance for the track and field because the town of Amherst has agreed to support that for the FY27 fiscal year. I've taken that out of this budget. We've applied 850,000 of school choice in this budget and our circuit breaker and IDA funds have also been applied within the special education expense lines.
So, it goes by certificated staff. So, there is going to be with these cuts not only um different layers of cuts through different, you know, non-tenured and tenured spots, but there also may be some reductions um based on uh not on seniority, which I think everybody isn't aware of. There is language in most of the contracts that talk about seniority, so that'll be a little different, but but I think it's important that you understand this because people just say, oh yeah, don't worry about it, get rid of all the new teachers, etc. That's not how it goes. All right? So, it's important that we bring that up now as as we're scrubbing some of this data, uh reducing some of that number. Um, those numbers don't lie. They don't lie, and Mr. Labou is going to clarify some of this after I speak just so we can both make sure that everybody knows what what what type of impact we have here.
Um, in terms of the financial reality, we've discussed a lot of pressures to the budget like the obligated salary, um, in contractual increases, our health insurance increases, the rising cost of special education, transportation costs. Um, and we've we've been looking at all of our grants and revolving funds, and I'll speak a little bit more about this on a different slide to see how we can utilize those um to help offset this budget as well. So, if we move on to the next page, you're familiar with this sheet. This is the revenue sheet. On the left column, we have FY26. On the right column in blue, we have FY27. So, at the bottom of the previous page, we had a $39.9 million budget, and that's at level services with no reductions. Um, we have an increase for chapter 70 based on the estimate that came out at the state level.
The energy cost increased just like in your house, too, right? The energy cost increased to the district is 45%. That's two tax points. Okay? That's two tax points, 45%. The state health increase, now this is important cuz I want to everybody understand this. The state health increase in this district is 41%. Everybody's throwing around 30%, it's 41% here. >> [clears throat] >> Okay? That represents >> [snorts] >> 10.2% increase to the to the tax levy. A 10% increase to the tax levy. So, before we even talk about anything else, we're at 10%. All right? So, that means that if you take all the new funding that the governor just gave us the other day, the 6%, which was $4.9 million, right? Everybody has a paper, "Oh, you got $4.9 million. It saves the day." We take the $4.9 million, take 10% off the top for charter schools, right?
We also have an increase for transportation reimbursement. We don't know where the transportation reimbursement will land at this point. We do know we're spending more on transportation, so the reimbursement will be higher just off of that alone. Um, but we won't find out until well after the budget has been voted by school committee what that reimbursement would be. Our Medicaid revenue has remained steady, so we're not making any changes to that. And charter is also a very difficult um balancing act. Um, it can swing um very large from one year to the next. So, we're holding that steady. We have increased our interest revenue significantly um based on what we've received the last two to three years. So, this is a still a conservative estimate um but an estimate that I do feel comfortable with supporting the operating budget. The homeless and foster care reimbursement that has not been included in the on the revenue sheet in the past, but it is something that we have been receiving for the past few years.
So, we're about $4.5 million. Okay? That's the the increase to the benefits themselves is $3.7 million. So, you take the the benefits, you take the energy cost, and that $4.9 million is completely gone. Okay? So, the the thank goodness that we got 6% from the state to cover just the health care and the energy. So, what does that leave us? That leaves us with the increment that leaves us with a bunch of other things. Okay? So, in order um in order to do the increment, and we haven't even talked We haven't even talked I haven't even mentioned facilities yet. Okay? So, we have facilities, we have programs, we have salaries. All of that is directly going to be impacting the the tax dollar. That's That's There's those numbers are real. There's There's no fluff, there's no anything. Okay? So, to be clear again, the entire 6% covers the health care increase and the energy cost.
So, we are now including that. Previously when we had that um and received it, it would hit our general fund revenue and then would end up rolling into our EMD. But I just wanted to call that out because we are starting to receive that consistently. Um and then we have our END budget at at 800,000 is the width budget and 280,000 as a contingency. As you know, we are hitting our or we have hit our max in END. So, it's an important balancing act to ensure um that we do utilize those funds to support the budget and and review it year-over-year. Down here at the bottom, we have the assessments for each town. Um so, Amherst has an increase of 4.11%, Pelong 8.38%, Le 4.18, and Sheesberry at 1.42% 42% increase because the um at the end of FY25 we had more funds in END that allowed 151,000 um to be exact.
And maybe a little bit of trans- maybe a little bit of transportation. Okay? All right, I'm almost done. Give me one more second. It Again, this is There's nothing fun about this. So, what we did was wait for this number, basically, right? So, before we were waiting, we were you know, she she gives her speech, we have to wait 48 hours, they check everything, we finally get this number midday, but before that it was and the committee will attest to this, it was very, very grim. The word that we were getting from Trenton was flat, you're not going to get anything, right? You got enough already, do what you have to do, blah, blah, blah. I mean, the numbers were out of control, okay? Um we get the number, we we don't want to affect any programs, we put it into those two major cost um effects of the impact.
The school committee um took a vote whether to apply that to the FY26 assessments or to focus it on the FY27. it was my recommendation that we um would adjust FY27 for a smoother cleaner process at that point. Um so down here at the bottom we've divided up the amount that these assessments in the blue column would be reduced for each um town. However, the amount in the blue t in the blue would be the base for next year. Um so with the reductions um or with these assessments, the reduction required of the district would be $1.1 million. So I'm going to talk a little bit about um what these reductions are, the budget adjustments and additions that we have here. So on budget adjustments, it's important to realize that these are not um actual reductions. These are a change in how we're funded. So, we have a summit teacher that we will move on to the summit revolving fund.
So that means that the board then needed to cut $6.2 million though in order to get to the tax levy we're presenting today, which I still think the board is not comfortable with, which is understandable because you're not going to be comfortable with it, okay? So we cut, Mr. Lebou and I took $6.2 million out of the salary lines. Okay? And that equates right now across all the bargaining units, across all the departments, that is 60 positions. Okay? No no programs are affected um at this point. Okay? Um so in order to accomplish this still and maintain everything status quo okay, and continue to build the foundation for the students here we still need to raise the levy by 5% Okay? So 5% is about $245 on an average assessed home, which I think is 230 230 2 I'm sorry, 285. Okay? 285,000 is the average assessed home.
The position is not being eliminated. It's just going to be funded from a different source. We also have the sixth graders moving into the middle school and there are going to be shared staff between the region and between Amherst School District. Um so we've been working through that with the Amherst um school committee and we have an estimated savings in the region because staff will be split between of $197,000. So that's also um being taken into account. We have a preliminary estimate of school aid of $175,000. This is a conservative number. I don't know where this will land in the state. Um I was hoping last year that we were going to see a large increase, but then they um ended up decreasing um the the amount we would receive from from the prior year. So this is still conservative and I hope that there's continued application for rural school aid um so that we would see an increase to this.
Okay? So whatever your assessment's at, if it's 285, that's what we're looking at for for an increase, okay? The proposal today for preliminary review is not the final proposal. So So board hopefully will vote yes on this today just so we can bring it to the county we get the rubber stamp and within the next 2 weeks if the board says we got to go less we got to go more I I don't know that's that's going to be their decision they were elected by you all they represent your constituency that's how it goes okay um I serve at the pleasure of the city and and make it happen all right but this is what I am saying and this is very very thin like very thin and and nobody wants to make any cuts if there's a way that I can keep everybody tell me if I'm missing something that's what we need to dialogue about let's go let us know um you know even grants everybody has all these oh do this you know do different bottles of water we're talking about 6.2 million dollars okay so yeah every little bit helps but again what are we impacting they have to be big numbers unfortunately in districts that that are uh strapped with not raising funds over time which we didn't do here which is fine I don't know what the reason was okay everybody was happy at the time but here's where we are and I'll tell you this next year the conversation's either going to be the same or worse all right because it's not sustainable it's not with the proposal today which is 5% and those cuts 6.2 million dollars in cuts we're still 18 million dollars under adequacy 18 million dollars that means that the state is saying for Garfield to be on the same parallel with other districts to be adequate spend adequate money on this the programs and students we need to put another 18 million dollars 18 million dollars into um the kitty and guess what that's 15% I've been saying that since the day I I got here the the board members that worked with me last year know this I said we need 16% to fund this um fund this program uh fund this district okay 16% so until we get there a little bit at a time it's going to be a long road uh of doing some of this stuff nobody wants to hear it I don't want to say it but this is where we are um I think you have to understand there's no mechanism of revenue.
Um, we're moving a salary intervention teacher to title one and that's a a a federal entitlement grant. We last year um there was a lot of discussion around our athletics revolving fund and we had to shift some of the operating or some of the cost for athletics onto the operating budget and that was our contract of transportation for athletics. So, I'm gradually going to start putting that back onto the athletic fund. We have seen a a big increase in our revenue collections um for athletics this year and that's um partly due to moving to electronic payments and um Georgia and Victoria have done a a great job in staying up to date and making sure that we are collecting those fees. Um we have a counselor that will um move on to a grant that we have available and also this there's a psychologist that will be moving on to the grant as well.
Okay, that a board can come up with enough to fund programs except tax levy. Right? We get a a nice portion of money from the state. Our title one money was is now less. So, if you if you are following along with the board the past year, we [clears throat] use our title funds for a lot of programs, right? You see it on the agendas. Title here, title one. We just We lost 200,000 or something like that. We used to lost 200,000, but then we think there's going to be more. I think the president is going to take all the titles, squeeze them together like Ronald Reagan did back in the '80s. You guys remember that maybe. Squeeze them all together and give you one bucket of money and say do what you want with it. Nothing wrong with that, but when you squeeze, you know what happens, right?
I will say this psychologist is also an ad um but the ad becomes a wash because we're going to support it on the grant and I'll talk a little bit more about that on the next slide. So here are our budget additions. Um so we have um like I just said an ad of the psychologist due to the shifting needs of students that we see will um be needed for the upcoming fiscal year. We also have an ad for BCBA um and I cannot remember the exact um acronym that BCBA stands for. So Tanya if you remember that would be helpful. Um >> board certified behavior analyst. >> Thank you. Um so there is an increase in need for those types of services. So um in speaking with SSO our um Joanne Smith she is recommending that we have an an additional staff member for that as well.
Stuff falls out. So, I think we're going to be even getting less. Um special ed costs are skyrocketing. Last year, in order to get the tax levy down, there was a couple of things that the board needed to do to help with the tax impact for last year. All right, we put money from one year into this year. We have to do that again for next year. It's it's dangerous. We took out a million dollars in special ed cost projections last year just to get it down. Guess what? We went over a million this year. We had to come up with it. This year, I'm proud to say that we are going to be solvent and we will not end the year in a deficit. Our projection is not to end in a deficit because of all those extra things that were cut out to get to this meeting last year.