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The Lanesborough School Committee has been divided over budgets and the school's administrative affiliations.

Lanesborough School Committee Chair Rejects Call to Resign

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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Chairwoman Regina DiLego rejected the notion of resigning from her position or elected seat, instead responding at Monday's meeting to fellow committee member Robert Barton's accusations.

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The chairman of the Lanesborough School Committee on Monday refused to resign either her position for or her seat on the elected body in response to a complaint from another member of the committee.

The three-person committee has been at odds over the past year about budgets and the school's administration.

Committee member Robert Barton sent Chairwoman Regina DiLego a two-page letter dated Nov. 15 in which he outlined several alleged "inappropriate actions and erroneous public statements" over the past six months.
 
Specifically, Barton said DiLego "purposefully misled" voters about the Laneseborough Elementary School budget at June's annual town meeting, misrepresented the committee in a letter to the president of the school's Parent Teacher Organization and mismanaged an Oct. 29 committee meeting in a manner that favored the position that DiLego holds on the future of Superintendency Union 71.
 
DiLego read into the record a point-by-point rebuttal of Barton's specific charges and concluded by saying that she would not resign her current positions.
 
 
Barton's allegations center on two issues: money and SU71, which he has repeatedly sought to dismantle.
 
The money question stemmed from a proposal on the floor of the June 10 town meeting that the school budget be trimmed by $50,000.
 
Barton, then the chairman of School Committee, told the voters that the school district had a $30,000 "contingency reserve" in its proposed budget, an assertion that DiLego rose to dispute.
 
In Barton's Nov. 15 letter, he cites minutes from a June 12 School Committee meeting that states "the FY15 budget approved at annual town meeting has contingencies/reserves totaling about $30,000."
 
"[T]o put it kindly, you misspoke at town meeting," Barton wrote.
 
DiLego replied that as early as April 30, she expressed "serious concerns about the FY15" budget and noted that LES Committee member James Moriarty (who skipped Monday's meeting) joined her in a 2-1 vote against Barton to approve the FY15 budget. She also implied that the June 12 meeting minutes did not accurately reflect the budget picture.
 
"In fact, any so-called contingency money was in the non-appropriated accounts," she wrote, referring to accounts not funded by town property taxes, "and, according to [Business Manager Lynn] Bassett on Nov. 19th, was all earmarked for specific negotiation settlements.
 
"... Now here we are in December and the FY15 budget is showing a deficit. How did I lie?"
 
The SU71 issue is central to Barton's latter two complaints, which involve an Oct. 29 meeting and an email from DiLego to PTO President Jen DeChaine about that meeting.
 
Barton bristled at DiLego's characterization that, "[Barton and Moriarty] have compelled the meeting at the time and date it is being held."
 
"As our chair, you have an obligation to represent the overall committee, not publicly divide it, nor speak officially against committee decisions," Barton wrote. "You have a fundamental obligation to be truthful, and the truth here is that Jim and Bob did not 'compel' the meeting nor set the time."
 
DiLego recounted her recollection of the meeting's genesis: She was "informed" by Barton and Moriarty that they set a meeting for Oct. 29 when she was out of the room. The time of the meeting — itself an issue for participants — was a concession to the fact that "Jim stated it absolutely could not be any later than 5:30."
 
Monday's meeting, which Moriarty missed, was held at 4 p.m.
 
DiLego also refuted Barton's contention that she "spoke officially against committee decisions."
 
"If, as you assert, you and Jim did not in fact take a vote to compel the meeting and the agenda, then there was no official position of the Committee, therefore I could not have spoken against it," DiLego said. "You can not say that you did not take a position and then assert that I spoke against your position. That is not possible."
 
Finally, the meeting itself — at which Barton and Moriarty pulled back from voting directly to disband SU71 — was criticized by Barton on Monday because, he said, DiLego "allowed the Public Comment portion of the meeting to go on for more than 30 minutes, despite our policy of limiting it to 15 minutes. You allowed outbursts and interruptions by the public later in the meeting. I believe it is fair to say that the outbursts supported your views and were opposed to the position held by other members of your committee."
 
DiLego pointed out that committee policy does not prohibit public comment longer than 15 minutes; it specifically states the length is at the discretion of the chair.
 
"I did not 'allow' outbursts," she continued. "Two outbursts occurred and I spoke up. ... The policy also states that members of the committee are not 'expected to respond to matters raised during public comment.' That you and Jim chose to respond was a decision you made on your own."
 
After DiLego read both Barton's complaint and her response into the record, the two held a brief exchange about the substance of the complaint.
 
Barton added that not only did DiLego mischaracterize the "$30,000 reserve," she also misled the public about the impact of eliminating one of the school's bus runs from the budget. He quoted her as saying pupils were being "squashed" onto buses already when, in fact, a recent reduction by one bus changed occupancy rates from 40 percent to 55 percent.
 
"You're entitled to your opinion," DiLego said. "Several days later, you did nominate me to be the committee chair even though you considered me a misleading liar."
 
Barton's two-page letter accuses DiLego of having 'purposefully misled' voters about the budget.
In other business on Monday, the committee discussed plans to replace a pair of longtime members of the custodial staff, accepted the request of a family moving out of the district to let its second-grader finish the year as a school choice pupil, discussed priorities for the district's incoming interim superintendent and weighed a suggestion from Barton that the Tri-District partnership review the formula for sharing costs.
 
Currently, SU71, a partnership of Williamstown's and Lanesborough's elementary schools, shares central administration with Mount Greylock Regional School. Barton, who is pressing to pull Lanesborough out of that arrangement, said that if it were to continue, he would like to see Lanesborough's share of the bill reduced.
 
"The current cost-sharing formula is a five-year moving average of two percentages — our percentage of Tri-District enrollment and the percentage of staff," Barton said.
 
The Tri-District model currently mirrors the assessments to the towns in the two-town Mount Greylock regional school district, which is based on a five-year rolling enrollment average at the junior-senior high school.
 
"Our enrollment [at LES] has declined, and Williamstown's has been much more stable," Barton said. "When you have to reach back five years, we're, in effect, being taxed for the good old days when our enrollment was higher. My suggestion is to go to three years instead of five years.
 
"Similarly, I'd propose we remove the staffing percentage as part of the calculation."
 
DiLego said she would suggest to her counterparts on the Mount Greylock and WES Commiittees that a joint meeting be held to consider Barton's suggestion.

Tags: LES,   school committee,   SU71,   

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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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