Once again, living in western Massachusetts can have its advantages as we view the devastation from last week’s blizzard in Eastern Massachusetts, compared to our modest snowfall and wind gusts. Unfortunately the advantages of being in an area with a relatively low population density, plenty of open space (often protected by the state), and low property and income wealth, compared to the more urban/suburban East, yield much less of an impact and “say’ in state politics and the distribution of state aid. Despite the Senate President coming from Western Mass, as well as some senior leadership in important roles in both the House and Senate, the fact that regional schools lost significant dollars in regional transportation reimbursement from 9C cuts and that money specifically set aside for identifying and mitigating the impact of losing Worthington from the district has not been awarded speaks volumes as to the importance of our small towns in Boston. Whether or not our new Governor—who has visited Western Mass but does not have it well-represented in his new cabinet—does any better remains to be seen.
At its January 28th meeting, the Gateway School Committee reviewed its second line item budget and received some recommendations from its finance subcommittee. The second budget was the district’s first attempt at a ‘six-town’ budget (i.e., without Worthington) and cut the bottom line of the budget from the first ‘seven-town’ budget by over $900,000 without significantly changing the configuration or student offerings in the district, a long-term goal of the school committee. While the budget will undoubtedly change as we move through the process, I believe it’s the intent of the committee to maintain basic services as they are today.
The finance subcommittee had three recommendations: (1) ask members to speak with their town leaders to delay action on the district’s budget until June; (2) have the chairperson create a committee to deal with developing a ‘separation’ agreement with Worthington; and (3) continue with a 1-year contract agreement with special education transportation to allow the potential development of an in-house transportation component.
The first recommendation relates to the fact that, with a new governor, the timeline for having state revenue figures for educational aid (Chapter 70 and regional transportation reimbursement) may be pushed back significantly (and, in a good budget year, we usually only have anticipated revenue in May). This will not change the timeline for the district having a budget adopted by the school committee and shared with the towns in March but rather, like last year, waiting to have a better idea of what our actual revenue will be as it relates to town assessments. Despite any problems with the state budget, or the approval of the district budget by the towns, state law does provide a means to have an operating budget in place by July 1.
The second recommendation has to do with the complexity and multiple unknowns of developing and negotiating a settlement agreement regarding the various issues related to Worthington leaving the district as of July 1, 2015. While the entire committee, along with the Town of Worthington, will be required to ratify whatever the end result will be, the process of developing the outline of the items, gathering information, and getting legal council can be given to a working group.
The third recommendation has both short and long term implications. The short term is to continue with 1-year special education transportation contracts for the immediate future. The long term implication is to study the potential of providing some in-house transportation services as time progresses.
The only thing I can say with any certainty is that the next few months will be both challenging and interesting for the district and the school committee.
