Mount Greylock to Amend School Budget to Add Building Project
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee will be asking for a budget amendment at town meeting to include the capital costs of the new high school.
The School Committee presented and approved a budget, which is increased by about $413,000, earlier this month. But that did not include the debt service for the building project, which received the affirmative vote from Lanesborough on March 15, a day after the public hearing.
"We're going to vote on an amended budget. When the first budget passed, there wasn't a project," School Committee Chairwoman Carrie Greene said.
The costs of the project are excluded from being calculated into Proposition 2 1/2 provisions. However, it will still need to be calculated into the school's budget.
"We need to include debt service in the budget ... It is a separate appropriation," Greene said. "It will still add to the total budget."
Greene said the exact impact on the budget is what's up for discussion next week. The School Committee will be essentially looking at how the payments will ramp up to a stable payment. For the first three years the payment amounts will increase and the committee will decide how big of a step is taken in each one.
For example, the district can opt to take an interest-only payment schedule for the first year, lowering the immediate impact. Or, the two towns can include principle payments as well, causing a greater hit immediately but bringing the payment closer to what will ultimately be the regular.
"How do we work up to a fixed number?" Greene said.
Short-term bond anticipation notes to are being used to continue the design work in anticipation for an August groundbreaking. Those get rolled into one large or multiple smaller bonds this fall.
"We are confident we can cover the next few months with short-term borrowing," Greene said.
That is right on target with what school officials hoped to do in crafting the timeline. Those first bond payments will be due in 2017 and need to be accounted for in both towns' budgets.
"Our goal right now is to make a decision for FY17 in time for the town meetings," Greene said, and those decisions will ultimately lay the groundwork for the payments for 2018 and 2019 before the debt is leveled out.
Lanesborough Town Manager Paul Sieloff forewarned the Board of Selectmen on Monday about the increase to the FY17 budget.
"We will see an effect on the tax rate for the building project this coming year," Sieloff said. "I was under the impression that it wouldn't hit it until next year."
The town's budget is shaping up to look like a 1.8 percent increase in spending. That includes the reduction in Mount Greylock assessment for operating expenses by $13,549 but does not include the building payment. Between the raising of the budget and the debt for the project, Sieloff is calling on all departments to "mitigate" the tax rate impacts.
"That would be a big point, I'd like to get to both schools — to do whatever they can to help us mitigate the debt exclusion," Sieloff said. "We all need to circle the wagons and try to mitigate the tax rate."
The local share of the $64.8 million project ultimately is expected to add $1.61 to $1.81 per thousand to the tax rate.
Williamstown officials are working to revise its budget to include the bond payment in advance of its May 17 town meeting. Lanesborough's town meeting is scheduled for June.
Tags: lanesborough_budget, MGRHS school project,
