The Gateway Towns Advisory Committee (GTAC) has spent conDsiderable time over the last two years trying to address a number of specific issues such as unfunded mandates from the state, the Worthington withdrawal from the Gateway School District, the district’s budgets, and how to find funding to look at how the district may be ‘restructured’ moving forward to save the towns money. On a much less frequent, and certainly less time consuming basis, GTAC occasionally discusses what the individual towns may do regarding regionalizing services, looks at the Wired West Issue, and reviews the fact that it is not ‘officially’ recognized or given authorization to represent any of the towns within the Gateway Regional School District. While there have been times in the past when all the towns were represented at the table, that rarely happens these days and I give credit to the towns of Huntington, Blandford, and Montgomery, which routinely have representatives from town government attending the meetings.
One must give credit to GTAC for its efforts in bringing into the open the discussions that are occurring on a more limited basis within the towns. Items such as whether the towns would find it more affordable to break up and dissolve the district, whether a different model of district operations would save money, whether the district agreement is still valid given the legal issues surrounding Worthington’s withdrawal efforts, how to continue to make the budget process more transparent, the many unfunded mandates faced by the Gateway District, the unfulfilled promises of state aid for education (both Chapter 70 and Regional Transportation Reimbursement), and the need to get more people involved in urging our government to support education.
At GTAC’s last meeting, I was pleased to see some additional movement towards action, including a united (at least for the four towns at the meeting) attempt to bring the need for mitigation funds to the state’s attention, both this year and for the next several years, to help the district transition to a six-town school district. To be effective, this mitigation money needs to be ensured despite any potential state fiscal problems (i.e., it must be given in such a way that a Governor’s 9C cuts wouldn’t eliminate that specific funding), must be significant to start with (we’ve been promised the net cost of Worthington’s withdrawal or $630,000 in the first year), and must, perhaps on a sliding scale, be available over a period of at least five years. As was pointed out at the GTAC meeting, if the lawsuit is settled in such a fashion that Worthington is allowed to leave the district, it will take several years to research, make recommendations, and implement those recommendations (including changes to the regional agreement) regarding ways in which the school district can change and adapt to this situation. Thus, mitigation funds over several years would allow both time to change and time to allow a gradual increase in local funding for education (i.e., although next year’s budget is less than the current budget, the assessments would increase over one million dollars without mitigation). To get this message heard on Beacon Hill will require more than just GTAC writing a letter, even if signed by all of the towns. It requires action by parents, community members and even students—a grass roots effort to demonstrate the importance of this funding so that the district can continue to support a quality education for our students.
GTAC will also continue to focus on unfunded mandates that are unnecessarily driving up the cost of education in all districts. These are particularly onerous in small districts (every district has the same mandates and reporting requirements other than Boston which is often specifically excluded from some requirements). I’m pleased to see GTAC take action on these items. I was also pleased to see a strong resolve on the part of multiple town representatives to separate out the budget development process from the budget approval process. In short, the discussion seemed to be focused on the school committee’s role in developing the budget in conjunction with the district’s professional staff and reviewing line item expenditures against the needs of the district and stating that the role of the towns did not extend into making recommendations on specific educational areas or line items. Rather, the towns’ should be providing guidance on the overall amounts that they would be capable of supporting from each town’s budget and allowing town residents to decide whether the town could support the district’s requests at annual town meetings. I believe the school committee and the professional staff in the district know that the current assessments are not affordable, despite the budget being what’s needed for our children, but are hoping for both mitigation funding and increased educational aid to help significantly reduce those assessments.
Therefore the bottom line is that we all need to contact our legislators and become involved in the process of ensuring the district receives what it was promised over the last 18 months by our state and elected officials.
