SOUTH DEERFIELD — The Frontier Regional School District School Committee unanimously approved its fiscal year 2026 $13.29 million general budget Thursday evening following a sparsely attended public hearing earlier in the week.

The budget, which will come before residents at each member community’s Annual Town Meeting, represents a 2.32%, or $301,888, increase over the FY25 budget. Director of Business Administration Shelley Poreda explained at Tuesday’s public hearing that the district’s proposal is a level-service budget that was crafted with the intention of reducing the financial burdens on Conway, Deerfield, Sunderland and Whately.

“That is a very modest increase for next year,” Poreda said of the 2.32% change. Discounting FY21, in which the district maintained a level-fund budget due to the pandemic, this year’s increase is the lowest in the last five years, with increases of 3.78%, 2.97%, 3.64%, 2.92% and 3.14% from fiscal years 2020 to 2025, respectively.

While wages and salaries are typically the main drivers behind Frontier’s budget, a $174,312 increase in health insurance costs through the Hampshire County Insurance Trust, which other districts in the region are also grappling with, was a new wrinkle to contend with. Poreda said the district has applied $100,000 of rural aid and School Choice funding to offset the increase.

Frontier remains one of the so-called “winners” of School Choice students in Franklin County — school officials have said in the past that while Frontier gains, other districts suffer. The district sees 161 students choicing in and only 21 going out, which nets the school nearly $1.3 million in funding. School Choice is calculated at $5,000 per student, plus any special education claims.

Alongside the use of the funds to reduce town assessments this year, Frontier typically uses School Choice money to offset the general budget, fund some positions, supplement special education transportation costs and pay out-of-district tuition. School Choice funds have also been used for capital projects, such as the replacement of the boiler, tennis courts and the first phase of the roof replacement.

“Without these funds,” Poreda said, “we’d be in a very different position as far as capital or debt service.”

To put Frontier’s School Choice situation into context, Poreda showed several examples of anonymous School Choice data from other school districts in the region, with “School A” seeing a net revenue loss of about $2.06 million due to 48 students choicing in, while 284 choose to go to another school outside their district.

Assessments in three of the communities are seeing increases, although Conway will luck out with an 11.51%, or $193,513, decrease. Assessments are determined using the state’s required minimum contributions, calculated by a formula using enrollment, property values, resident income and other data.

Sunderland will bear the brunt of the assessment increases this year, with a $222,436, or 9.39%, increase. Deerfield and Whately will see increases of $201,600, or 4.51%, and $60,402, or 5.86%, respectively.

School Committee member Philip Kantor, of Conway, said his town had one extremely wealthy taxpayer move out of the community, which was one of the major reasons why Conway’s assessment decreased. He added that the state’s required contribution is often difficult to predict and it can drastically affect small towns with fewer than 2,000 people.

“This part of the school budget is the most unpredictable on a year-to-year basis. We don’t have any insight on how it’s going to look until it’s thrown in our laps,” Kantor said. “One wealthy taxpayer can skew those numbers up so much that when they leave, this is the result.”

Frontier’s budget will come before voters at each community’s Annual Town Meeting this spring. Sunderland kicks things off on April 25, followed by Deerfield on April 28, Whately on April 29 and Conway on June 7.

Chris Larabee can be reached at clarabee@recorder.com.