Great Barrington — At a brief 25-minute meeting, the Berkshire Hills Regional School District Committee approved its proposed fiscal 2026 budget on Thursday, March 6.
The proposed school budget will now go to the select boards of Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge for review as part of all three towns’ municipal budget processes.
During the February 27 committee meeting, the committee directed Superintendent of Schools Peter Dillon to reduce the proposed fiscal $37.5 million budget by $200,000. The motion for the cuts was made at the February 27 meeting by Finance Subcommittee Chair Richard Dohoney out of concern that Great Barrington is looking at a Proposition 2½ override to pass its fiscal 2026 budget.
At the March 6 meeting, Dillon presented the committee with an estimated $250,800 worth of cuts. However, Dillion proposed an addition to the budget by reinstating a physical education teacher at Monument Mountain Regional High School to half-time status, adding $33,343 to the proposed fiscal 2026 budget. At previous committee meetings, several school district staff members spoke out against cutting the position.
As part of the budget reductions, Dillon recommended the following cuts:
- In the school district’s general budget, the contingency salary line item has been reduced by $40,000, business office supplies has been reduced by $4,000, and the school committee dues line item has been reduced by $5,000.
- At Muddy Brook Elementary School, a special education program has been eliminated due to student enrollment changes with a line item reduction of $80,000, the special education tutor salary has been reduced by $5,000, the hardware line item has been reduced by $5,000, and the curriculum purchase line item has been reduced by $643.
- At W.E.B. Du Bois Middle School, the textbook account line item has been reduced by $10,000, supplies line item reduced by $10,000, professional development line item reduced by $13,000, and the salary tutor line item reduced by $4,000.
- At Monument Mountain Regional High School, the assistant principal Career Vocational Technical Education (CTVE) position has been eliminated, reducing the budget by $107,500.
As per documents submitted to the school committee by Superintendent Dillon, the total proposed budget for fiscal 2026 is now $35.1 million, a $1.56 million (4.66 percent) increase from this current fiscal year.
Dillon lists that the school district is scheduled to get various state aid and Medicaid reimbursements, along with interest and miscellaneous income totaling $5.27 million. If all of the aid comes in as scheduled, the total estimated net assessments to Great Barrington, Stockbridge, and West Stockbridge would be $29.8 million, a $1.29 million (4.5 percent) increase from this fiscal year.
As proposed, Great Barrington would pay an assessment of $22.2 million, a $1.17 million (5.55 percent) increase from this fiscal year. Stockbridge would pay a net assessment of $4.09 million, a $222,661 (5.76 percent) increase from this fiscal year, and West Stockbridge would pay $3.55 million, a $105,035 (2.87 percent) reduction from this fiscal year.
“Nobody likes to engage in cuts or reductions, and I think we made the best out of a particularly challenging year,” Superintendent Dillon said at the March 6 school committee meeting.
Finance Subcommittee Chair Richard Dohoney, who made the motion at the February 27 meeting for $200,000 in budget cuts, said that he did not agree with all of the proposed cuts but did not specify which ones. “I always struggle with this process,” Dohoney said. “Cutting things is the most difficult and most important educational policy decision that’s made. It’s best made by the educators, and not by us. We provide guideposts. But, for the system to work, there’s consensus on where we need to go, and I think this is the best way to go. And I trust the administration 100 percent that they are making decisions that are in the best interest of the district.”
The school committee voted unanimously to pass the proposed fiscal 2026 budget.
