Lanesborough Selectmen Unsupportive of New Capital Agreement With Williamstown
 The Board of Selectmen said it does not support the new agreement with Mount Greylock Regional School District as written. |
The Mount Greylock School Committee, upon request from Lanesborough, has been crafting a new agreement for capital costs eyed to be more equitable.
The biggest change is in the usage the state's "equalized valuation" formula to judge each town's property values.
The current agreement locks in the cost-sharing ratio at the time a bond is issued, which in this case would put Lanesborough on the hook for about 33 percent of the bond for the new high school throughout the life of the bond.
The new agreement calls for a five-year rolling average throughout the life so if Lanesborough's evaluation goes down or enrollment drops, the town would pay a lesser share.
"If it doesn't change we would have a fixed cost for the length of the agreement," said Town Administrator Paul Sieloff.
Sieloff encouraged the board to support the change despite a few aspects the board cited not being included. Particularly, the board asked for non-profits to be included in the evaluation. However, school officials say in Williamstown, many of the non-profits don't have payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreements in place so the town sees no revenue from them.
"I'm not willing to give up on equity on tax-exempt properties," said Selectman Robert Ericson.
Ericson says assessors do track the value of non-profits so it is easy to add that into the determination of the town's property values. Ericson also called for counting pupils who are allowed to school choice in at the elementary level to be counted toward the accepting town's population when the students get to high school.
Selectman Henry "Hank" Sayers says he doesn't support it because one of the legal clauses written into the agreement restricts other towns from being added to the district in the middle of a fiscal year — meaning a joining town would have to wait to until the start of the following fiscal year.
"I can't accept it. This is not for Lanesborough, " Sayers said, calling for reducing the agreement to be voted on to just the change in the bond split without the additional language.
Sieloff said that clause was added by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and he doesn't believe many towns would want to opt in in the middle of the school year.
"I don't think there is anything in that is a death knell to the document," Sieloff said.
The town administrator reminded the board that "it's a negotiation" and that not everything the town wants or doesn't want in the agreement will be there. If the change isn't approved by voters by Dec. 15, the town would operate under the previous agreement for at least the first year, which Sieloff said will cost the town more. He said in the future the town can again ask to reconsider the agreement.
"The key thing is getting the five-year rolling average to protect the town," Sieloff said. "We could go to the wall on something but if it doesn't pass by Dec. 15, we lose everything."
Both towns have to approve the same agreement and the way it is written, and demographic studies show that Lanesborough's share would decrease in the coming years because of population loss.
One change the town did see in its benefit was a circuit breaker that sets a 75/25 split limit so Lanesborough's share could never go below 25 percent.
The board sent their comments to the Mount Greylock School Committee, which headed the crafting of a new agreement, and the board will take a position on it at its next meeting. Ultimately, the agreement will go before voters at a special town meeting scheduled for Dec. 1.
The board is also looking to add a few other items to that special town meeting. In the few weeks, the board will be looking to craft a backyard chickens bylaws (which it hopes to include other animals like rabbits), a fine for false burglar alarms police respond to, and requiring solicitors to register with the town before canvassing a neighborhood.
Tags: assessment, contract, MGRHS,
