The Gateway Regional School Committee adopted the FY’17 budget on March 9, which will be sent to the towns for ratification. In a move reminiscent of prior years’ votes to use additional state money to reduce town assessments, the adoption process included an amendment to review the budget to potentially reduce town assessments further based upon estimated state aid from the House budget, which we expect will be given to the public in mid-April. I believe this is in response to the public budget hearing where we heard two things fairly clearly from town officials: they spoke in favor of not cutting the school budget any further (despite the nearly identical letters the school committee has received from town selectboards asking the committee to hold assessments level with last year), and shared a desire to cooperate in meeting somewhere in the middle between no increase at all in town assessments and the assessment increase in the current budget. With additional state aid to Gateway and the school committee’s potential action to reduce assessments to some degree, we’re hopeful that the school and towns can find common ground and that this year’s budget can be passed without a long, drawn out battle ending with the DESE setting the budget, as happened this past year.
While we can argue over the numbers from the last ten years, whether they be town or school budget figures, percentages of budgets spent on different activities, the cost per student or per resident, or any other factors, the underlying problem is not expenditures but rather revenue. Simply looking back a few years, one can see that the state was paying for just over 60% of the school budget through state aid to education, whereas now that figure is less than 40% –and even that doesn’t address the reductions in federal grant allocations that support local educational programs.
If we further factor in the loss of town income from various revenue—Payment in Lieu of Taxes, Cherry Sheet Aid, property taxes from commercial property, and loss of income from businesses—it’s easy to see that, despite the Gateway budget being less than it was in 2003, this has still been a difficult issue of affordability for the towns. However, there comes a point where further reductions in educational expenses aren’t possible without a significantly negative impact on educational opportunities. I believe we’ve reached that point and I am hopeful, given the statements by town officials at the public budget hearing, that our elected officials have reached the same conclusion. While further efficiencies may be possible for both the schools and our towns, this is not likely to be a long-term answer to a declining tax and revenue base. Rather, in the words of Andy Meyers, we need to look towards making this region attractive to people and businesses looking for a wonderful place to live and work, with opportunities for owning a home, running a business, providing jobs, and increasing tourism. I believe most agree that part of this includes providing broadband access to all areas of our communities, seeking support to improve our overall infrastructure, and seeking assistance in marketing this area to potential families and businesses. Further reduction of educational opportunities, further reduction of limited town services, and other actions that would make our towns and schools less desirable to the general public and business community should be avoided wherever possible in order to present a positive picture for potential growth in the region.
