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Date: 1/12/2022
HUNTINGTON — After five years of discussion and meetings to draft a new regional agreement required by the state between the Gateway Regional School District and its six member towns, officials seem close to a version that can gain support in Blandford, Chester, Huntington, Middlefield, Montgomery and Russell.
One hopeful sign at the discussion on Jan. 5 was that all six towns were represented, something pointed out by Superintendent Kristen Smidy at the start of the meeting.
Smidy said the last piece needed for the new regional agreement is to agree on a new formula for an alternate assessment method to determine what share of the cost of operating the school district each town pays.
Five years ago, the towns voted to include as an option, on a trial basis, an alternate assessment method for the above-minimum contributions by the towns, which would increase all six member towns at the same percentage rate as the total district percentage increase annually.
The alternate assessment was offered because the default assessment method under state law — which apportions each town’s share based on its student population in the March student census each year — can shift the burden wildly from year to year with the movement of only a handful of students, making budget planning difficult for the towns.
The alternate assessment option requires approval by all six towns each year, as compared to the four towns required to approve the statutory method, which was still being offered each year. Only once did the towns approve the alternate assessment during the five-year trial.
Smidy said that the trial is now up, and the district has to come up with a new formula for the alternate assessment, because she said a lot of stakeholders found the current calculation to be flawed. She said the district’s attorney spoke with the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which is open to any agreed-upon calculation.
Smidy said Assistant Superintendent Stephanie Fisk came up with several different methods for calculating the alternate assessment, some of which are used in other districts. One of the most popular is to continue basing the assessment on student population, but to use a rolling average of enrollments over five years, which may yield less of a swing for the towns.
Another option would be to put a cap of 2 percent on how much a town’s assessment could increase any given year, and equally distribute the amount over the cap among the other towns. Smidy said that would even out big increases for any one town.
The third option would be to place a cap of 2 percent, and proportionately distribute the increase over the cap based on population, using the March census data. Another similar option would be to proportionately distribute the increase over cap based on a five-year average of student population at the time of the March 1 census.
The last option would be to keep the same alternative assessment formula, with all towns’ assessments rising the same percentage as the district.
Several town officials at the meeting supported the idea of option 3, a cap of the increase, but asked that the over-cap burden be distributed among other towns based on population. Michael Morrissey, chairman of the Montgomery Board of Selectmen, suggested lowering the cap to 1.5 percent, and distributing the balance over the cap proportionately to all six towns based on population.
“By playing with those numbers, it would support the towns to have a gradual climb rather than a huge spike,” Morrissey said, adding that the goal of the alternate assessment is to “ease the pain.”
Jason Forgue of Chester liked Morrissey’s suggestion.
“I would certainly agree with that,” he said, adding that spreading the amount over the cap across all six towns would be more fair. “And I would agree to lowering it to 1.5 percent … and spread it across the six towns according to population.”
“It just feels like a guaranteed increase every year; a guaranteed 1.5 percent increase, instead of looking at how the school can save money every year,” said Russell Finance Committee member Ruth Kennedy.
Smidy said due to inflation and contracts, assessments do go up annually. She said she will attend a workshop on regional school funding, and School Committee member Jason Forgue is going to rural school funding meetings.
“We are definitely looking into ways to save money,” she said.
Chester Finance Committee member Andy Myers said he would agree to setting the cap at 1.5 percent to have all of the towns contributing to overages.
“The challenge is all six towns agreeing to it, because you have the alternative assessment versus statutory. In Chester, we have a stabilization education fund. Every year, we budget the same amount as the school goes up. For example, two years ago, the statutory assessment saved us $80,000, and we put it into a stabilization fund. The next year, we took the overage we owed out of the stabilization fund,” Myers said.
Curt Robie of Middlefield said the reason the alternate assessment has worked so well for the town in the past is that the second year, all six towns voted for it and it worked fine. The next year, towns didn’t vote for it due to a large decrease in some of their statutory assessments.
Robie asked why can’t the towns vote to use the alternate assessment on a multiple-year basis of five years, or three years or two years, so they can’t opt out when the statutory assessment is more favorable.
“You’re never going to get townspeople to agree to vote for some method when they can save $60,000 [by voting another method]. Last year, Middlefield said they weren’t going to do it because the other towns didn’t do that.”
Forgue said the towns are required by law to vote on the method every year.
“I’m encouraged this year there is representation across the board. The fact that we’re all here, and all trying to work towards the same goal, encourages me that we can go back and say we all agreed to work together and spread that to the voters to encourage this to move forward,” he said.
“When we first started talking about this, the idea for me was a great one, because we were supposed to look at the school budget that wouldn’t change a ton and would be more and more stable,” said Russell Selectboard Chair Wayne Precanico.
“I have to defend the number, when you’re looking at dollars and cents, for a town that doesn’t have a lot of money to begin with. If we can make it more stable, that’s important for any select board or finance or school committee members. I would like to see the numbers laid out. I would be willing to stand up and say it would be a good chance to move forward,” Precanico added.
“Perhaps with this new calculation, the swings won’t be as great, so townspeople won’t see the same swings. The new method relies on trust and transparency, but still relies on the kids in your town,” Morrissey said.
Smidy said school administrators would work out the numbers and bring them to one more meeting, to make sure there is consensus, and then get them off to DESE for approval.
“This is a very positive outcome. I will be in touch with the next steps, and hope to meet later in January to finalize [the regional agreement], and have it for the next town meetings,” Smidy said.