Greylock School Committee Offers Compromise to Lanesborough Voters
 Mount Greylock School Committee members, from left to right, Carolyn Greene, Jack Hickey and David Langston. Far right is Co-Principal Timothy Payne. |
On Tuesday night, the committee voted 5-1 to appropriate $75,000 of the school’s unrestricted fund balance from Fiscal Year 2010 in order to allow reductions in member town’s assessments to the FY2011 budget.
By passing the motion, the committee is saying it will accept a Lanesborough assessment of $2,532,839, which is $30,000 less than the committee had originally requested, but $30,000 more than Lanesborough voters approved at the town meeting on June 8.
The remaining $45,000 is the reduced assessment from Williamstown. Although the town approved its full share of the budget at town meeting on May 18, the regional agreement prohibits one town from paying more of its designated share than the other.
Lanesborough will have a special town meeting to vote again on its school assessment on Tuesday, July 13. If Lanesborough rejects additional funding toward Mount Greylock, the School Committee can then call for a district meeting to decide the budget.
"If history is a good indicator, Lanesborough will likely lose at district meeting and Mount Greylock would get its budget," School Committee member Carolyn Greene said. "It would be a bad time in terms of town relations, so it’s kind of a lose-lose no matter how you look at it.
"I’m not convinced, at this point, that a district meeting is going to give us what we need in terms of helping town relations."
The "unrestricted fund balance" to make up for the $75,000 shortfall would come from shared-administrative cost sharing, excess-and-deficiency funds and school-choice revenues.
School Committee Chairman David Archibald said that, depending on how much money can be appropriated from those sources, staff furloughs could be implemented during the upcoming school year to make up the difference.
At the special town meeting, if Lanesborough votes in favor of an assessment $30,000 more than its previous vote, Archibald said that a "tier" of personnel and program cuts at Mount Greylock would not be necessary.
 William D. Travis attended his last School Committee meeting as Mount Greylock's superintendent on Tuesday night. Check back Wednesday for more information regarding the contract negotiations for Rose Ellis, who will be the next superintendent, as part of the cost-sharing agreement between Greylock and School Union 71. |
Of the six articles, the major cuts included $25,000 from the Lanesborough Elementary School Expense account, $20,000 from the Police Department and $6,000 from the Highway Department.
Ronald Tinkham, a School Committee member and Lanesborough resident, explained the warrant articles to his fellow committee members. He said the additional $60,000 would "cut deeply" into town services. Tinkham said it was the recommendation of Lanesborough Selectmen to have a "50/50 split," raising the assessment by $30,000 instead of $60,000.
The compromise would result in amendments to the town warrant articles, significantly reducing the amount of cuts needed to town departments.
David Langston, who was the lone nay vote for the compromise, questioned why Lanesborough would make cuts to town services when it could instead transfer money from its stabilization fund.
"To take $20,000 out of the Police Department is a good-faith gesture? Nonsense," Langston said. "That’s game-playing."
Archibald insisted that the School Committee should not dictate the manner in which Lanesborough spends its reserve funds.
"We should not go to the town and say ‘we think your stabilization fund should be utilized in this fashion,’" Archibald said. "The town can say whatever they want and they can offer whatever they want, in good faith, and I think that they have."
On June 15, Lanesborough Finance Committee Chairman Bill Stevens stressed to the School Committee that the stabilization fund is reserved — though not by law — for capital expenditures and it shouldn’t be used toward operating expenses.
Article 6 on the special town meeting warrant asks voters to transfer an unspecified "sum of money" from the stabilization fund to the Mount Greylock school assessment. The sum, if any, likely will be determined by how much money is transferred from the other town departments.
Update: Lanesborough voters accepted the compromise at a special town meeting.
