Mount Greylock Regional School Committee members Steven Miller and Carolyn Greene address the Board of Selectmen on Monday.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen on Monday heard about the evolving proposal to change the formula by which the Mount Greylock Regional School District apportions capital costs.

 

School Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Greene and several other school officials attended Monday's meeting to explain the article the district hopes to present to both Williamstown and Lanesborough for special town meetings later this fall.

 

The district, which hopes to bring a bond vote for a renovated junior-senior high school to voters in spring 2016, wants to change the capital apportionment first so that the new formula is in effect for the prospective bond.

 

"In order for any change in the regional agreement to be applicable to a bond in the spring ... we have to finalize this by Dec. 15," Greene told the board.

 

"This" is a revision that would make capital apportionment more responsive to changing demographics over the life of the likely 30-year bond.

 

Currently, the agreement splits the apportionment based on the resident student enrollment of each of the district's member towns and the "equalized valuation" of each town. Equalized valuation, or EQV, is the commonwealth's mechanism for comparing total property values across towns.

 

The problem is that the current Mount Greylock agreement pegs the entire bond apportionment to the enrollment/EQV split at the time the bond is floated.

 

The School Committee hopes to change the agreement so that each year for the life of the bond, that apportionment would change to reflect the current EQVs in each town and a five-year rolling average of student enrollment.

 

The district currently uses a five-year rolling enrollment average to apportion annual operating expenses.

 

"One thing we've been talking about is making sure the agreement is equitable not only at the moment of bonding but making sure it's equitable dynamically," School Committee member Steven Miller told the board.

 

Miller of Williamstown and member Sheila Hebert of Lanesborough attended Monday's meeting, along with Mount Greylock Superintendent Douglas Dias, School Building Committee co-Chairwoman Paula Consolini, Williamstown Elementary School Committee Chairman Dan Caplinger and two members of Williamstown's Finance Committee, K. Elaine Neely and Dan Gendron.

 

Everyone in the room agreed that the rolling average is a more fair way to share the cost of a capital project.

 

The new wrinkle being considered by the School Committee generated some discussion.

 

As presented at Monday's meeting, the change to the regional agreement would cap any town's share of the bond payment in any given year at 75 percent.

 

Currently, the split is about 67 percent to Williamstown and 33 percent to Lanesborough. The proportion has remained fairly steady since the two-town school district was born.

 

But some demographic projections have Lanesborough's share dipping to 30 percent or even a little lower in the near future.

 

"Based on some of the valuation and student population projections, we tried to pick a number that would act as a good circuit breaker," said Selectman Hugh Daley, who serves on the Mount Greylock School Building Committee. "[A 75/25 split] is not extremely likely to be hit but could conceivably be hit.

 

"It would constitute about a 25 percent change in the current total of the ratios in order to hit that low number. Student population and EQV in Lanesborough would have to decline relatively drastically or Williamstown would have to increase relatively drastically."

 

Some Williamstown officials wondered whether the "circuit breaker" should be set to trip a little sooner.

 

"[Lanesborough's share] has never gone below 30 ... so I'd pick 70/30," Selectman Andrew Hogeland said. "I would make the ratio closer to long-term history."

 

Gendron said he agreed that a 70/30 split would have more of a "basis in reality."

 

But Neely said she thought 75/25 made more sense.

 

"It seems to me if you set the floor at 30, that's very close to the actual range, so it's not a circuit breaker, and it's not making it equitable," she said. "The formula changes, and if it should change to 29 percent, all of a sudden your circuit breaker kicks in."

 

Town Manager Jason Hoch follows the board's discussion.

Selectman Ronald Turbin said he felt strongly that the 75/25 split was a better place to put the cap.

 

As for whether the circuit breaker comes into play, that all depends on population trends and changes to property values in the respective towns. And there is no way to really know the direction or intensity of those trends over the next three decades.

 

School officials can point to historical trends that show the ratio of the towns' equalized values has been fairly consistent over the years.

 

Even another large cut in the the assessed value of the Berkshire Mall (a reasonable fear given the recently announced closure of one of its anchor stores) would not trigger the cap. Miller told the board on Monday that the mall represents $30 million of Lanesborough's $419 million in equalized value (about 7 percent).

 

The Mount Greylock School Committee, which already has consulted its legal counsel in addition to officials in both member towns, plans to finalize the language of a warrant article at its Oct. 13 meeting and send a formal request to each town for a special town meeting at that time.

 

Williamstown Town Manager Jason Hoch said a meeting likely could be held on Nov. 17. Lanesborough officials previously have said Dec. 1 would work for them.

 

In other business on Monday, the board appointed Charles Bonenti and Bridget Spann to fill open seats on the Milne Library Board of Trustees, appointed Peter Beck to the Municipal Scholarship Committee and accepted a lease agreement for the Williamstown Historical Museum to use the town-owned Little Red School House building at the junction of Routes 7 and 43 in South Williamstown.

 

The board also approved an alteration of premises application from Wlliams College to continue its alcoholic beverage service at the remodeled Log on Spring Street.

 

College counsel Jeff Jones told the board that the school plans to open the bar at the Log from 4 p.m. to midnight seven days a week and serve food at least five days a week from 4 p.m. on. He also said the college hopes to soon have a deal finalized with local restaurant Hops and Vines to manage the Log's bar.