Once again the district’s budget for the current school year has been turned down by the towns based in large part on the decrease in revenue created by Worthington’s withdrawal. We continue to count on the promises made by district legislators regarding mitigation relief and the hope that Governor Baker is correct in predicting that the state will have its FY’15 supplemental budget completed during the next two weeks. In the meantime, to ease parent and student concerns, we continue operating under a 1/12th budget (set by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and based upon the budget adopted by the school committee last spring). Although more than $400,000 less than the previous budget, the current budget does not cut student services and will remain in place until the towns and school committee agree on a budget. Given the timelines established by law, the district and our towns have time to complete another complete budget cycle (30 days for the school committee to develop and approve another budget and 45 days after that for the towns to vote) before the DESE sets the budget for the rest of the year on December 1. As always, the school committee has the option of return the same budget, a lower budget, or a higher budget to the towns.
As with many of the budget discussions at town meetings that I’ve attended for nearly four decades, the bottom line remains the perceived inability of the towns to afford the cost of educating our children. Despite the reality that the district’s request for funding is actually a lower percentage of town budgets then the historic twenty-year average, the large one-year increase in town assessments this year due to Worthington’s withdrawal is certainly difficult to accept, especially as many towns have become used to small increases or even decreases, in their assessments. It’s unfortunate that there remain such large differences in opinion about town and school budgets and that there are so many ways to display the facts based upon an individual’s viewpoint. In Blandford someone put out a school budget ‘fact’ sheet (I’m told by the Blandford Finance Committee that they did not put it out and were not aware of the sheet available in a local store) that, if put out by a town official, would violate election law. While containing some factual information, this sheet also included some inferences that were certainly inappropriate. You may see this sheet, and the district’s answers, on the Superintendent’s Blog on the Gateway website. Despite many opportunities for town officials and school committee members to review the budget during its development (over the several months the school committee had this on their agenda), it always seems to come down to misunderstandings exchanged during town meetings. Given the busy lives everyone leads, it may be understandable that many lack the time to participate in this process, or to even attend town meetings. I’m hopeful that we can, with the help of the state, resolve the current budget impasse so that we have sufficient time to work on the FY’17 budget, which is now due to the towns in just six months.
There will be much discussion occurring during the upcoming year as both the district and GTAC look at finding ways forward for the district and, hopefully, remembering that the school district and towns must both continue to exist if we are to continue being relevant, able to meet the needs of all of our citizens, and being a place where families wish to live and educate their children.
