Mary Paradise has lived in Pittsfield for 37 years and understands the heavy strain of rising taxes on town residents.

She also believes that if significant reductions to the school budget were made, the Pittsfield School District might fall short of serving the children as it should.

The proposed operating budget for the district came in at $11.72 million, which is lower than the $12.42 million default budget. In other words, if voters rejected the proposed budget, the higher default budget would take effect.

The proposed budget does not fund certain things like a receptionist, a college and career advisor and technology upgrades, which are included in the default budget. 

After careful research, Paradise proposed an amendment at the district’s deliberative session to cut the difference between the two budgets in half. She figured that by increasing the proposed budget slightly, the school would not have to make as many cuts while avoiding skyrocketing tax bills.

The amended operating budget would increase the tax rate by nearly $1 per thousand, or about $300 a year for a house worth $300,000.

The only other article with a tax impact is a proposed increase in salaries and benefits in a one-year collective bargaining agreement between the school board and the Education Association of Pittsfield.

On both the school district and town ballots will be asked to consider moving back to a traditional town meeting format, which was unanimously recommended by the budget committee and the school board. The school board explained that they believe that more inclusive and better decisions on the budget could be made if the town returned to it.

Both the town and schools use the SB2 format, which breaks town meetings into two parts: a deliberative session, where voters discuss and amend warrant articles, followed by all items decided at town-wide ballot voting on March 11.

At the Pittsfield Town Deliberative session, the proposed SB2 amendment was also passed onto the ballot as written as many residents echoed that the traditional format led to more informed voting. All other items on the Town Warrant will appear on the ballot with no amendments, except for changes to the make and model of the new police cruiser.