Mt. Greylock Sends Budget Back To Lanesborough For Second Vote
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Mount Greylock Regional High School is taking a second chance at getting the town assessments approved.The School Committee voted Thursday to send the same budget back to Lanesborough for approval with a town assessment voters had cut by $30,000 last month. The town now has 45 days to set up a special town meeting to vote it down again or else the assessment automatically goes into play, School Committee Chairman Robert Ericson said.
If that assessment is voted down again, the assessment debate could then go to a joint-town meeting.
The committee members believed they had more time to find a budget solution until they recently discovered that state law requires them to submit a revised budget in the month following the town meeting.
"We have 30 days after the town meeting to vote to either send back to the towns our original school budget, an increased budget or a decreased budget," Erickson said. "We're running out of time."
"The discussion I had with the chairman of the Lanesborough Board of Finance after the last meeting, he indicated to me that he was willing to entertain some discussion and accept some accomodation," Hickey said.
Erikson said Bill Stevens, Lanesborough's Finance Committee chairman, told him something similar.
"He did say that they were in a better shape financially and that there was some more money in the town coffers that was available. But it would be between $15,000 to $30,000," Ericson said. "It's not restoring the budget to its original form."
According to Ericson, Stevens told him the Finance Committee would have supported the full budget if they had known ahead of time that there was not as much in reserves as originally reported.
Superintendent of Schools Rose Ellis said Lanesborough could hold a town meeting in August on the budget. The town has 45 days from Thursday to hold the meeting.
Lanesborough's Board of Selectmen could agree to the current assessment and decide not to call the meeting, which would set the proposed assessments.
"I would suggest that you, as soon as reasonably can be done, meet with both the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance and explain the situation and see if they won't accommodate us," Hickey said. "I think what we are looking to avoid is the sense that we are confronting Lanesborough."
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