Dr. David Hopson
As we rapidly approach our seven towns’ Annual Town Meetings, I thought people might like a review of the two potential amendments to the Gateway regional agreement that should be on each town’s annual meeting warrant. I’ll review the amendment requested by Worthington to allow them to withdraw from the district this week and then review the “one-man/one-vote” amendment in next week’s column.
I’ve been getting many questions about the withdrawal of Worthington and it has been discussed at both school committee and GTAC meetings. The amendment is relatively short and simple and outlines the costs Worthington would pay to withdraw from the district (see the amendment and related information at www.grsd.org). The intent of this article is to allow Worthington to completely withdraw from the district. I believe their plan is to become a one town school district allowing them to open the R.H. Conwell School as a public, PreK-6 grade elementary school and tuition the grade 7-12 students into junior high/high schools in another town/district. The school committee has not received any definitive plans from Worthington related to whether Gateway would be considered as a tuition site for their students, but students at any grade level could always choice into Gateway if Worthington succeeds in withdrawing from the district.
As with all amendments to the regional agreement, this requires a unanimous vote from all seven Gateway towns and then approval from the Commissioner of Education. If Worthington withdraws, Gateway would potentially lose the 54 students from Worthington who currently attend Gateway schools. In withdrawing from the district, our remaining towns’ assessments would reflect the loss of Chapter 70 funding from Worthington as well as changes in above minimum and non-foundation amounts. The following figures related to this change are estimates based upon the current budget request for FY’14 and could change considerably based upon the overall budget in the year that Worthington withdraws as well as the number of students from Worthington that would choice or potentially tuition into the district. We estimate the preliminary revenue loss to the district to be $1,185,699. Offsetting this loss is the potential reduction in expenditures, which we estimate to be $339,768 as well as Worthington’s continuing capital payment of $90,000. Thus we estimate that the preliminary net costs to the remaining six towns would be $755,931. This would result in town assessment increases (based upon current student enrollment) approximately broken down as follows: Blandford $102,172; Chester $136,234; Huntington $204,343; Middlefield $43,685; Montgomery $71,813; and Russell $197,684.
If passed by all seven towns and approved by the Commissioner, this would reduce the number of towns in the district to 6 meaning that we would need 4 towns to pass a budget and that the school committee would shrink by Worthington’s two school committee members.
Of course the other side of the equation is that Worthington would need to establish its own school committee, fund the entire cost of education for its children including administrative, staffing, capital, utility, supply, insurance, transportation, central office, and miscellaneous costs as well as pay for outgoing choice and tuition students. The chair of Worthington’s finance committee told GTAC that these costs would be much greater than what they are currently paying to be a member of the Gateway District.
This amendment was supported by Worthington’s elected officials and voted upon favorably at a Worthington Town Meeting, making it necessary for the school committee to move this issue forward to the towns for ratification. Each town will vote on the amendment based upon the needs and desires of their own town and define the future direction of the Gateway Regional School District.
