CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The Finance Committee and School Department are working through the budget for fiscal 2020 and trying to determine where some $94,000 in retirement insurance for should land.
The Finance Committee wants it coming of the school's budget since it relates to retired school employees but the School Department believes it should be the town's line item. Committee member Mark Denault said the line item had been covered by school-choice funds last year with the agreement it would become a school expense.
"I can go back and we can get our minutes," he said at Thursday's meeting. "But it was definitely talked about it, was agreed upon that that portion of cost to the town, again, the town being one budget, would be coming from the School Department budget."
It was no different, he said, than if a related line item came from the police or town or highway budget.
"It was just a matter of where the line item was going to sit and where the money's going to come from and what part of the budget it would be in," Denault said. "It's my understanding again that it was agreed upon it would come from the School Department."
Northern Berkshire School Union Superintendent John Franzoni reminded the committee that he had taken over months after the budget was set and passed and was unaware of any agreement.
Cutting the Clarksburg School budget by nearly $100,000 could have an impact on staffing, Franzoni said. Also, it was not clear if the school should be responsible for that line item.
Two weeks before, Franzoni had discussed the line item briefly at a School Committee meeting and said he had asked the district's attorney to review the request.
"It's not a normal accounting to have that included in th school budget," he said at the time. "The town's the employer of everybody who works here. It doesn't make sense to move that onto the school budget."
Finance Committee member James Stakenas, referring back to last year's budget discussions, said everybody's budget had been tight and it was a matter of finding the resources.
"I took took the position that it is related to school expense," he said. "If you find something different from your colleagues fine, but it's related to the the school's expense and how we rally the revenue to cover it is a different conversation."
The Finance Committee has been pushing for several years to use more of the school-choice account to offset expenses. The state's school-choice program allows parents to "choice out" their children to accepting schools. The state funds follow the students.
Clarksburg regularly takes in school-choice students and expects to have eight slots this coming fall, two in middle grade and six in kindergarten, while four school-choice students will be graduating from eighth grade.
The cherry sheet estimates for fiscal 2020 have the school receiving about $328,000 in school choice along with another $1.8 million in state Chapter 70 education aid. The town's charges from the state are $162,798 in school-choice sending, down about $30,000 from this year. The charges for the charter school are about $25,000. These numbers are still in flux as the Legislature is still debating the budget.
"If the town doesn't have any money, and we have some school choice to help keep operations and keep things going, then that's a logical place to look for it," Stakenas said. "But it was just last year it was regarding, where's the expense? Where does it go? And where the resources to cover it?"
Franzoni said the School Committee had voted to keep $300,000 as a base in the school-choice account to cover any emergencies such as a building issues or a student needing expensive out-of-district care.
"The problem with that is that the town side of the budget, again, I don't like separating, but it's costing the town side of the budget $187,000 for school-choice sending, right so what school-choice receiving comes into the school department, there's no offset for that," said Denault. "And that's what we are trying to think about, to look at last year and fix is that the revenue sources there, it's just being diverted some how not getting to where the cost is coming out. ...
"It still puts the town as a whole to the negative $187,000. So I think that's what we were trying to fix last year with the discussion about school choice, and that revenue source coming into the entire town and the entire infrastructure."
Franzoni said he knew the School Committee in the past had been using up to $300,000 in school choice to offset the school spending over several years. He anticipated that again for next year but did not have the figure that was in the school fund right now. Business Administrator Carrie Burnett and the town accountant had that information but neither were at the meeting.
"The budget we have now for next year, we're going to use $310,250 out of school choice," he said. "What Carrie had based that around is maintaining that $300,000 balance in the school-choice."
Denault said he was trying to determine what would be left in the account outside of the $300,000 cap and funds incorporated in next year's budget.
"My point is as a town, I want to make sure that we're being financially responsible enough to say, we're trying to use the revenue source we have to help fix the problems in the infrastructure," he said. "That's all. That's what I'm trying to get to, is there going to be a pool of money over the cap?"
Stakenas was also concerned about having controls in place so the account wasn't being used to cover costs that should be budgeted. Franzoni responded that during his 10 months nothing had been spent out of the account that wasn't part of the budget.
Franzoni also explained that a one-year 1.5 percent contract had been signed with the teachers union. That had been prompted by the proposed merger with Stamford, Vt., School and teachers agreed to hold off until that was settled.
Another impact to the budget was a re-evaluation of the school union contract that hadn't been done in some six years. Clarksburg had been paying 34 percent of the union budget but now would be paying 40 percent, or about a $40,000 increase. Part of that cost will be for the new full-time business administrator, Jennifer Macksey, who signed a contract on Thursday and will start on July 1.
"Obviously, you know, the debate about Chapter 70 money and how the changes at the state level aren't impacting the rural schools at all," he said, and referenced a governor's conference call when he and Town Administrator Carl McKinney learned the increase would be 3/1,000th of one percent.
"So the only thing that is going to help us are the proposed changes in the bill by Sen. [Adam] Hinds, where he's trying to get $400 per student allocated for rural schools to help us," the superintendent continued. "We did receive about $13,000 this past fall we actually used for offsetting expenses in the budget. That was money that we were not anticipating getting, but, you know, the hope is that was Sen. Hinds' follow up on to that bill from last year that we would get more funds for Clarksburg."
The committee agreed to meet with school officials again next Thursday, April 25, to get firmer numbers on the school-choice account and the insurance line item. Stakenas said he would articulate his questions again to Burnett so she could answer them next week.
"And then possibly that meeting, we can just come to the agreement on what the proposed budget is going to be, what's agreed upon and go forward with setting a budget because time is getting short to set a budget for a May meeting," said Denault.
If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.
Your Comments
iBerkshires.com welcomes critical, respectful dialogue. Name-calling, personal attacks, libel, slander or foul language is not allowed. All comments are reviewed before posting and will be deleted or edited as necessary.
No Comments
Pagliarulo, Strout Win Seats on Dalton Select Board
By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
The election saw about a 20 percent turnout of registered voters.
DALTON, Mass. — Voters returned one of two incumbents to the Select Board and one newcomer on Tuesday.
Antonio "Tony" Pagliarulo won one of the two seats in the four-way race with 577 votes for the board, outpolling the other three candidates by 107 votes. Coming up second was incumbent Marc Strout with 486.
William Drosehn, chair of the Finance Committee, was 13 votes behind at 473.
Robert Collins, who won a seat by 13 votes in February's special election found himself out of the running this time with 459 votes.
Pagliarulo expressed his gratitude to the voters and hopes that he and the board can do a good job by them.
"Everybody's going to be in office, even though the other two candidates didn't make it. We have a Finance chair and we have a person on the Planning Board, so hopefully we'll work in harmony together," he said.
Collins holds a seat on the Planning Board; Pagliarulo is a member of the Green Committee and the Public Safety Facility Advisory Committee.
The elections saw above-average voter turnout, with 1,001 individuals voting in person at the Senior Center, and 83 mail-in ballots were counted after the polls closed, for about 20 percent of registered voters.
Residents lined Field Street with signs in support of their preferred candidates as some played lawn games to pass the time.
When the unofficial results came in, several of Strout's supporters cheered as they left the Senior Center.
Strout said he looks forward to serving on the board for another three years and will do so with honesty and integrity.
This will be Strout's fourth term. When running for Select Board nine years ago, he didn't think he would ever get to this point.
"But when you get in here and you're able to serve the people and look out for them and take care of the small things for them, whether it's a pothole on their street or the street light out, those are the things that are important to people," Strout said.
"We got a lot of work ahead of us and bringing people together to get things done, and that's what's going to take for all of us to work together."
Although losing this race, Collins intends to stay involved in the town, continuing his work on the Planning Board and Storm Water Commission.
When asked whether he would request a recount given the close results, Collins said he does not intend to and emphasized his trust and faith in the town clerk’s office and the volunteers who handle the counting process.
Drosehn said he does not believe the results reflected the true vision of the town’s people, feels there was an "anomaly" in the results, and plans to call for a recount.
He said town voters prefer to have someone on the board, "one in particular," that he thinks doesn’t approach the issues.
Unofficial results for other contested races were:
The Planning Board had three candidates for its two open seats. Voters elected Dennis Croughwell, who had 729 votes, and Donald Davis with 456. David Martindale had 434 votes.
The Library Trustees had five candidates for its four available seats. Voters elected Anne Ronayne, who had 1,263 votes, Thomas Condron with 710 votes, Leonardo Quiles with 623 votes, and Sherri Belouin with 576 votes. Michael Jamrog had 356 votes.
Reflecting national trends, schools in the Berkshires and across Western Massachusetts have experienced a decrease in student-athletes playing football. Previously, Drury fielded a cooperative team with Mount Greylock, while Hoosac Valley and McCann Tech operated independent football programs. click for more
Ashlyn Lesure scored 18 points, and Regan Shea and Emma Meczywor added 15 and 11, respectively, as the Hurricanes successfully defended their 2024 state crown and won the program’s fourth state title in a run that has seen Hoosac Valley go to the state final nine times since 2014. click for more
Pittsfield High's Matt Dupuis and Lee's Devyn Fillio Sunday won the boys and girls individual high school bowling State Championships at Spare Time.
click for more
Capped by Sam St. Peter’s come-from-behind win in the final bout of the day to win the 285 crown, the Spartans placed second at the Western Massachusetts Division 3 Championships at Mount Greylock. click for more