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.