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Mount Greylock School District Eyeing OverrideBy Tammy Daniels
iBerkshires Staff
01:42AM / Wednesday, March 03, 2010
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School District expects to ask voters to support a Proposition 2 1/2 override this year.
The school district is struggling with a shortfall fueled by losses in regional transportation funds, level funding of state Chapter 70 aid and a 9 percent increase in health premiums.
The $10.5 million budget — up $600,000 over this year — was presented to the Williamstown Finance Committee last Thursday (available for viewing on Willinet). The committee signaled both the likelihood of an override and a desire for more trimming.
School Committee Chairman David Archibald, however, said he believed the consensus was to move forward with the current numbers.
"This Proposition 2 1/2 override may not have any chance of success and the absolute value of the amount we ask for may make it less successful," said Archibald on Tuesday night's meeting. "Oh, we can make do. But we've been making do year after year after year."
If the school district gets an override vote this year, it won't get another one soon, he said. "This budget puts a tiny bit of flesh on the bones" that may not be the case in following years.
| Budget Highlights |
♦ Transportation funding estimated at $139,000, down from $429,000 in 2009
♦ Tuition revenues down 13 percent
♦ Special education up $236,000, or 18.4 percent
♦ Salaries and benefits: $7.4 million
♦ Health-care premiums up 8.8 percent |
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The first-draft budget has already been cut by $1.3 million. The school district's lost nearly half its regional transportation funding from the state and level funding of Chapter 70 aid, based on 2008 enrollment, means a loss of more than $30,000. The district's also losing between $60,000 and $120,000 in tuition losses because of moves and graduations.
Some $250,000 in school choice funds will be offset by the cost of out-of-district placements for nearly a dozen students. Special education costs are up by 18 percent.
As the budget currently stands, Lanesborough will see its assessment jump 15 percent, or $362,380, to $2.7 million. Williamstown is looking at an 11 percent hike, or $373,250, to $4.8 million.
Committee member Ronald Tinkham, a Lanesborough representative, said he felt an obligation to identify areas that could be cut.
"I think we need to the act as a team with the Finance Committee," he said. "Anything that's supported by the Williamstown Finance Committee has a better chance of getting approved."
When questioned, Superintendent William Travis said his highest priority would be maintaining staffing, his lowest technology with the exception of essential software updates.
"I don't think I can give you a top 10" with line items that could be mixed and matched for cutting, he said, and continued that to "cut $200,000 we may have to shave a little here and there; at $400,000 it may require real reorganization."
That could mean switching from seven periods to six, and reviewing athletic and educational programs to eliminate to the most expensive or the least utilized. Any reorganization could mean staffing cuts as well.
Committee member Jack Hickey said it was incumbent upon the board to set parameters of what was expected in terms of reductions.
"It's up to the school board to tell the administration that the budget he's presented tonight is unacceptable. We need to give him guidance," he said. "Telling him 'do the best you can' is shirking our responsibility."
Member Robert Ericson, too, said he would feel more confident on debating the merits of the budget sooner rather than later. "It'd be nice to have a heads up of what we're talking about before the issue is thrust upon us."
Travis was asked to assess the effects of cuts at around $200,000 and around $400,000. At least, said School Committee member Heather Williams, "so we can say without the override, this is what we'd lose."
The board set Thursday, April 1, as the date to vote on the budget; the earliest town meeting is Williamstown's on May 18. The budget will be presented to the Lanesborough Finance Committee on March 18.
Archibald said the board should begin planning for an override campaign.
"We've held our budget to zero for years," he said. "I think it's too early to back off that number."
In other business:
► Williams told the board a request for proposals for the siting of an AT&T cell tower in the southeast corner of the school property is awaiting counsel's review of the draft lease. Several items in the lease, such as a mechanism to negotiate a new lease once the previous one lapses, were missing or incomplete. There is also a question whether the school has a special rate for electricity on how that would affect the tower's power supply. Williams said answers to those questions were expected by Thursday.
► A new regional agreement between Williamstown and Lanesborough and the district drawn up over the last year is being reviewed by the state.
► The bonding process for repairs to the locker rooms and the replacing the heating boilers in the pipeline with expectation of having a bond anticipation note this spring. |
Your Comments
iBerkshires.com welcomes critical, respectful dialogue. Name-calling, personal attacks, libel, slander or foul language is not allowed. All comments are reviewed before posting and will be deleted or edited as necessary. Post Comment |
As a taxpayer, I would like to know what programs are offered to students of MGHS. Some I have heard about seem rather frivolous.
Children deserve a good education, but if tax payers are expected to give more of their hard earned money to support MGHS, they should , at least, know it is being well spent. | | from: amy | on: 03-03-2010 12:00AM
I Agree (0) - I Disagree (0) |
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The previous comment from Amy suggests without citing any specifics that Mount Greylock RHS continues to hold onto frivolous programs in the face of years of budget cuts.
It has now been almost 30 years since Proposition 2 1/2 was adopted in Massachusetts. Adjusted for inflation, property taxes have declined by roughly 25% during this period, which means that on average, we are paying a significantly smaller proportion of our personal incomes for schools and local government services than we did 30 years ago. State and federal funding for schools has been cut on the order of twice that amount.
Many of the educational programs that my generation took for granted when I was in high school (1970's), like shop or a choice of languages (German, say), are long gone. At Mount Greylock, some programs have been protected because they are both popular and have high educational value, such as the Latin and the stained glass art programs. Some might think of these as non-mainstream and therefore frivolous. However, in each case however, they are highly successful courses whose elimination would devastate the languages and arts programs, respectively.
If you look at the list of cuts being contemplated by the Mt Greylock School Committee, and if you watch the School Meetings where these cuts are being discussed, I don't know how one cannot be moved to wonder "Why are we doing this to our schools?!". And ultimately, the question you need to ask yourself is "Why are we doing this to our community?" | | from: Pat Dunlavey | on: 03-18-2010 12:00AM
I Agree (0) - I Disagree (0) |
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