Dr. David Hopson
This year’s annual town meetings are proving to be interesting and I’ve only attended Worthington’s and Middlefield’s at the time I’m writing this column. As touched upon in previous columns, town warrants have two additional items on them related to the Gateway School District – the amendments to the regional agreement on ‘One-Man/One-Vote’ and the withdrawal of the Town of Worthington.
As anticipated, Worthington voted to accept the amendment requested by the Town of Worthington to withdraw from the regional district. It was noted during the extended discussion that this would cost the town more than they currently pay to belong to the Gateway District, but less than what they were paying before the district closed three elementary schools; thus the increase in educational costs to Worthington should be less than $436,476 (which is the difference between their 2009 assessment and their FY’14 assessment). Middlefield’s annual town meeting voted to reject the withdrawal amendment, in part because of the additional assessment burden it would place upon the town for education.
It appears to me that both sides have very valid points for their decisions and that we’ll see how the other five towns vote on this amendment (although it’s essentially already failed because an amendment to the regional agreement requires all 7 towns to vote in favor). I give Worthington credit for their determined pursuit of a public elementary school in their town; in fact they already have a plan in place to pursue special legislative action to allow Worthington to leave the district under ‘home rule’, thus eliminating the need to get agreement from the other district towns or any permission from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), essentially bypassing the regional agreement and the approval process set forth in regulations surrounding regional districts.
The Worthington town meeting also allowed John Baldasaro (chair of Chester’s select board) to speak to the assembly. Mr. Baldasaro spoke eloquently of the impact that Worthington’s withdrawal would have on Chester’s ability to exist as a town if their educational assessment increased due to Worthington leaving the district. And despite the allegations that district administrators used different numbers in their estimate of the cost to the other towns, we did hear that Worthington’s ad-hoc committee is planning to tuition their 7th through 12th graders to Hampshire Regional, meaning that the $755,931 net increase in assessment cost figure for the remaining towns used by the business manager is much closer to the potential actual dollar amount than that used by Worthington’s ad-hoc committee. I’m sure we’ll all be involved in some way if Worthington decides to seek special legislation and moves forward with their plans to establish a one-town public school system.
In terms of the One-Man/One-Vote amendment, Worthington’s recommendation from their select board and finance committees was to take no action while Middlefield voted to approve the amendment. Once again, we’ll see how the remaining towns vote (for those with a long memory, this was the amendment that was passed by all seven towns but Worthington rescinded their vote just prior to the last town’s approval, thus stopping this amendment from being put into place). As to the budget, Worthington approved an amount based upon student percentages rather than the state’s formula, effectively voting against the budget while Middlefield voted in favor of the FY’14 budget. Unlike regional agreement amendments, which require a unanimous vote, the budget requires 5 towns to vote in favor in order to be adopted.
