Lanesborough Shorts Mt. Greylock High School $30K
 Mount Greylock Regional High School Finance Director Jennifer Coscia said the budget was crafted knowing that this would be a difficult year for the towns and that the district lowered the assessment to Lanesborough. |
The town should not have to drain its reserve fund to support a school that has more in its reserves, voters said Tuesday when they approved an assessment $30,000 short of Mount Greylock's request.
According to Finance Committee Chairman William "Bill" Stevens, the town is already dipping into its reserve funds and the approved assessment will leave both the town and the school with similar balances.
"In [the school's budget] they projected a balance in the school choice fund of about $560,000," Stevens said at the annual town meeting. "We have $440,000 [in reserves]. They have $560,000."
According to the school district's Director of Finance Jennifer Coscia, the district enters the year with about $377,000 in reserves and the most recent predictions show that account to be at $430,000 at the end of the next fiscal year — not $560,000.
School officials tried to make the case that the school is being "prudent" in maintaining a reserve fund.
"We have to have a little money," Superintendent of Schools Rose Ellis said. "I assure you we are being prudent fiscal managers."
Stevens said the Finance Committee had no issues with the school's budget and praised the work the administration put into crafting it. However, since the town will have to dig into its reserves to support the school, it is only fair that the school dips more into its account, Stevens said.
"It's simply a matter of re-funding the budget," Stevens said. "We're not suggesting they make more cuts."
Because of the cost-sharing agreement between Williamstown and Lanesborough, the assessment to Williamstown would have to also decrease by a total of about $60,000 — leaving the school $90,000 short of a balanced budget.
If the school used $90,000 from its school-choice funds, it will be left with about $470,000 at the end of the next school year and Lanesborough will be left with about $410,000, Stevens said.
"We are already dipping into our reserves," Coscia said. "We requested a 1 percent reduction. We knew the towns were in a very difficult spot."
The assessment to Lanesborough dropped by about $25,000 from last year and Williamstown was level funded in the proposed $10.4 million budget. Williamstown voters already approved the town's assessment.
But even to support the lowered assessment, Lanesborough officials said they are going against principle by using reserves.
"We do not want to use stabilization money to fund the operating budget. That's a municipal sin," Stevens said. "I'm trying to level the field."
While some supported the school, one angry resident, Ray Jones, lambasted the school district and called a vote to further reduce the assessment by $100,000.
 Resident Ray Jones angrily encouraged the town drop the assessment by an additional $100,000 at the annual town meeting. |
In response, Stevens said he would not support further reducing the assessment because it was simply unfair. Voters shot down Jones' motion unanimously.
The battle is not over, though. The Mount Greylock School Committee has already expressed willingness to take the assessments to a joint town meeting to force Lanesborough to pay the higher bill. That meeting would include all registered voters of both towns; Williamstown's population outnumbers Lanesborough's 4 to 1.
School Committee member Carrie Greene said after the meeting that the committee will discuss the next steps at its meeting next week.
Last year, Lanesborough approved a budget $60,000 shy of the school's request and the committee later agreed to use some of its unappropriated funds to make up the difference.
The town passed a budget of $9,239,932 with relative ease despite taking nearly three hours to approve it. The omnibus budget also included funding for the elementary and McCann Technical schools.
Also of education note, the town voted in favor a forming a three-member committee to investigate the pros and cons of joining the Northern Berkshire Regional Vocational School District.
