Granby Finance Committee Finds $340,000 Gap in School Department Budget

GRANBY — May 5, 2026 — Granby Finance Committee finds $340,000 omitted from school department's level-service budget. The committee spent most of its May 5 meeting piecing together why the school department's original level-service budget and its later public-meeting budget differed by roughly $340,000, tracing the gap to a single residential special-education placement costing approximately $347,000 that had not appeared in the version given to the Finance Committee. Members said the cost is offset by an increased circuit-breaker reimbursement estimate — raised from $600,000 to roughly $900,000 for FY2027 — but argued that had the placement been visible from the start, the committee would not have committed an additional $390,000 to close what it thought was the school's full funding gap. "You specifically asked them to attend this meeting to answer a few questions, and nobody's here," one member said after the superintendent's written response failed to resolve the timeline question. The committee also worked through an East Meadow School loan double-count that inflated the draft FY2027 total budget figure from $28.9 million to $29.5 million, agreed on corrections, and debated pointed language for its Town Meeting annual report warning that the Forge Pond dam — listed unsafe by the Army Corps of Engineers — and the aging junior-senior high school require action, not further delay.