AMHERST — A $103.3 million fiscal year budget that goes most of the way toward meeting the spending requests from the Amherst and Regional school committees, while leaving six full-time and one part-time municipal positions vacant and assorted Jones Library staff positions unfilled, is being delivered to the Town Council.

“This FY26 budget reflects the town’s commitment to delivering excellent services while making the difficult but necessary choices required to maintain fiscal stability,” Town Manager Paul Bockelman writes in a memo accompanying the budget plan, released on Thursday. “We are prioritizing investments in our public schools and essential services, recognizing that doing so requires real trade-offs and careful stewardship of limited resources.”

The budget was scheduled to be presented for the first time at the council’s meeting this past Monday. A Finance Committee hearing on the budget is scheduled for May 12 at 6:30 p.m.

The budget being recommended by Bockelman includes $28.32 million for the Amherst elementary schools, which is a 5%, $1.35 million increase over this year’s $26.97 million budget. But this means spending would fall short of the 6%, or $269,704, budget endorsed by the Amherst School Committee.

Bockelman said this week that he is abiding by the 4% financial guidelines and other advisories from councilors, reaching the 5% increase for the elementary schools budget by using free cash for the last 1%, or around $270,000.

“This is a free-cash bridge to the consolidation,” Bockelman said, explaining that this is a bridge loan to get the elementary schools through the next school year, which will be the last in which Amherst will have three elementary schools.

Beginning in fall 2026, both Wildwood and Fort River schools will close, with an under-construction K-5 school opening on South East Street just south of the current Fort River School, and sixth graders from those schools, as well as Crocker Farm School, attending a 6th Grade Academy in the Amherst Regional Middle School.

In his memo, Bockelman explains that the 6% request from the Amherst School Committee is not in compliance with financial guidelines or the Town Council’s 10-3 vote in April to support an increase up to 5%. Adding the extra money would have required cuts in other budgets, using more one-time money or seeking a Proposition 2½ tax-cap override, at a time when residents are already going to be seeing property tax bills increase due to the borrowing for the school building project.

“None of these options are palatable nor are any of the options in keeping with the Town Council’s budget policy guidelines or subsequent guidance,” Bockelman wrote.

Bockelman is, though, supporting a $19.74 million assessment for the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools, which is a 4.8%, or $905,670, increase above this year’s $18.84 million assessment. Among the four member towns, which includes Leverett, Shutesbury and Pelham, Amherst is seeing the smallest percentage increase toward a $37.08 million budget, which is 6.5% higher than this year’s budget.

Town spending plan

The $29.5 million operating budget for the town is up 4%, or $1.13 million, from this year’s $28.36 million budget, while the $2.39 million in tax support for the libraries is also up 4%, or $92,083, from this year’s $2.3 million budget.

On the town side, Bockelman said the positions being frozen are two in the Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service department, the unarmed police alternative, one each at the Department of Public Works, the police department, the fire department and Town Hall, and a part-timer in the Recreation Department.

At the Jones, positions unfilled for several years will again be left vacant.

The budget was challenging to put together due to rising health insurance and cost-of-living adjustments and step increases in collective bargaining agreements, Bockelman said.

To make the numbers work, he reduced capital spending from 10.5% of the tax levy to 10.265% of the tax levy.

“This reduction was done reluctantly as I balanced competing Town Council goals,” Bockelman wrote in his memo. “It amounts to a $151,376 reduction in funds available for capital.”

But Bockelman wrote that the “budget prioritizes essential services, addresses aging infrastructure, and invests in capital needs.”

The budget maintains the town’s focus on racial equity and climate action by fully funding Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Sustainability initiatives, and continues funding for implementation of the new rental registration bylaw, Recreation’s youth programming like the Morning Movement and Mentoring programs, and provides staff support for numerous capital projects.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.