Lanesborough Officials Debate School Spending

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
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The Finance Committee, Selectmen and School Committee hold a joint meeting on Wednesday to discuss funding before the budget process starts.
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — How quickly should Lanesborough Elementary School shrink?
 
That was the main focus of Wednesday night's meeting between the Board of Selectmen, School Committee and Finance Committee.
 
The three boards gathered to talk finances prior to the start of the budget process in hopes to reach a common understanding.
 
Much of the conversation focused on the long-term enrollment numbers.
 
The Selectmen voiced concern with tuition and school-choice students, fearing that by accepting the additional students it is requiring the town to pay more in staffing than is needed. 
 
"The concept of choice and tuition students. Maybe it would be better to consider the elementary school eliminate it," said Town Administrator Paul Sieloff.
 
"When you take choice students and tuition students to some degree you don't control what happens down the road."
 
The second grade this year emphasized the board's concern. There are 28 pupils, three of whom are from other towns. The School Committee earlier this year opted to keep two classes for that grade level instead of one. The Selectmen say the cost of a teacher and benefits could have been saved by going to one class of 25 students.
 
However, School Committee members say they opted for two classes to keep the number of students smaller in each.
 
"It is agreed nationally that smaller is better," said School Committee member Robert Barton of the class sizes.
 
The number of tuition and school choice slots is made by the School Committee each year. The goal of opening up school choice in certain grades is to fill a classroom the School Committee thinks is small. State reimbursements also follows the student.
 
"We see it as the same revenue stream. To give that up, the revenue stream disappears," said School Committee member Jim Moriarty.
 
School Committee Chairwoman Regina DiLego said there are 21 school-choice students and eight tuition students. Those account for $100,000 in revenue. If choice and tuition is eliminated, that revenue would be gone while not reducing anything on the spending side. 
 
Selectman Robert Ericson, who sits on the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee, said once a student choices into Lanesborough or Williamstown Elementary, he or she has the right to stay in the district through the high school level. This creates a "bubble," Ericson said, forcing the high school to have extra staff for school-choice students from each elementary school.
 
"I think we need to look at the overall management of this," he said. "It can often be a two-times-the-size bubble because of what happened at the two elementary schools."
 
Barton said the population trends show the school shrinking on its own anyway. He said the school will eventually have one class per grade and the School Committee is "managing it down." Barton didn't see the need for a concentrated effort to reduce staffing or payroll to hasten that decline.
 
"We have excellent teachers and we don't want to lose them," Barton said, adding that there are other ways to reduce spending at the school.
 
Barton particularly sees savings in a potential changes to the shared administrative agreement with Williamstown. And he emphasized some changes the School Committee did make to lower the budget for this year.
 
"This year we reduced our transportation budget dramatically," Barton said. "That budget was cut. We now have three regular buses."
 
The School Committee has already been faced with complaints regarding the reduction of one bus because of the length of time the students are on the longest route. Barton said for short-term savings there could be the reduction of another bus.
 
School Committee member Jim Moriarty said it is really up to the taxpayers to determine what kind of school they want it to be.
But, the reduction of yet another bus would require students living as far away as O'Connells Convenience Plus to have to walk up Summer Street to school. That was a proposal none of the committees wanted to seriously consider because of safety issues.
 
"If you want something, you have to give something up," Moriarty said.
 
Shrinking the school more quickly is one option.
 
But Finance Committee member Ronald Tinkham suggested looking at growing the school. Lanesborough Elementary School was built for some 350 students but is only half full right now.
 
Tinkham suggested filling the school by bringing the middle school students attending Mount Greylock back to town to become a K-8 school. 
 
That would increase enrollment at both Williamstown and Lanesborough Elementary while reducing the size of the proposed new Mount Greylock Regional — and its cost to the two towns.
 
"We need to explore ways to fill this building," Tinkham said.
 
Other school districts have tried to increase tuition and choice students to fill their buildings and capitalize on the revenue stream. So ultimately, Lanesbough needs to decide if it wants to grow or shrink the school.
 
The Finance Committee did not want to make administrative decisions such as how many buses or how many school-choice students. Rather it had a simple message to convey: The money is running dry. 
 
"You are going to get less money. You have to prepare for that. You have to plan for it," said Finance Committee member Al Terranova. "The town decides where to spend money. I think you are going to see recommendations across the board for less money for the schools."
 
The School Committee said the budget is tight as it is. Right now there is about $22,000 aside as a "cushion" in the budget in case utility bills come in high, students need extra services or teachers take college courses and up their position on the salary grid.
 
"The expectation is that we won't drown. But, we're not swimming in excess money," DiLego said.
 
Spending for schools has grown annually; about 71 percent of the town's budget goes to education. In this last fiscal year, the town had to reduce the number of roads it could pave. And the number of delayed infrastructure projects is growing, Sieloff said.
 
He added that the town's health insurance cost through Berkshire Health Insurance Group is going to go up significantly over the next few years - eating up more of both the school and town budgets. 
 
"There is no opportunity in the town for overrides," Sieloff said.
 
With foreseeable increases in the next budget session, Sieloff said he hopes to come to terms with all departments so that they can speak with a unified voice at town meeting. Right before town meeting last year, there was some back and forth between the boards to come up with agreed-upon budgets.
 
"All we wanted to do is get together with the School and Finance to better understand the budget when it comes in," said Selectman Henry "Hank" Sayers, who had the idea of Wednesday's meeting and is hoping to set up a similar one with the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee. 
 
"Last year we got a little blindsided. It wasn't anybody's fault. It just came in late."

Tags: Finance Committee,   LES,   MGRHS,   municipal finances,   school budget,   school choice,   

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Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corporation Scholarships

LUDLOW, Mass. — For the third year, Berkshire Wind Power Cooperative Corporation (BWPCC) will award scholarships to students from Lanesborough and Hancock. 
 
The scholarship is open to seniors at Mount Greylock Regional High School and Charles H. McCann Technical School. BWPCC will select two students from the class of 2024 to receive $1,000 scholarships.
 
The scholarships will be awarded to qualifying seniors who are planning to attend either a two- or four-year college or trade school program. Seniors must be from either Hancock or Lanesborough to be considered for the scholarship. Special consideration will be given to students with financial need, but all students are encouraged to apply.
 
The BWPCC owns and operates the Berkshire Wind Power Project, a 12 turbine, 19.6-megawatt wind farm located on Brodie Mountain in Hancock and Lanesborough. The non-profit BWPCC consists of 16 municipal utilities located in Ashburnham, Boylston, Chicopee, Groton, Holden, Hull, Ipswich, Marblehead, Paxton, Peabody, Russell, Shrewsbury, Sterling, Templeton, Wakefield, and West Boylston, and their joint action agency, the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC). 
 
To be considered, students must submit all required documents including a letter of recommendation from their school counselor and a letter detailing their educational and professional goals. Application and submission details will be shared with students via their school counselors. The deadline to apply is Friday, April 19.
 
 MMWEC is a not-for-profit, public corporation and political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts created by an Act of the General Court in 1975 and authorized to issue tax-exempt debt to finance a wide range of energy facilities.  MMWEC provides a variety of power supply, financial, risk management and other services to the state's consumer-owned, municipal utilities. 
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