Mount Greylock Committee Sends Apportionment Proposal to Towns
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Lanesborough Town Administrator Paul Sieloff addresses the Mount Greylock School Committee on Tuesday. |
This story was updated with comments from the Board of Selectmen's meeting on Tuesday night, held concurrently with the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee meeting.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee has finalized a proposed change to the regional agreement that alters the way capital expenses are apportioned to member towns.
It also got the strongest indication to date that there will continue to be a Mount Greylock Regional School District.
The future of the two-town district has been in question since Lanesborough town officials earlier this year began entertaining overtures from the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District. The ACRSD Committee has drafted a proposal to enter into a tuition agreement with Lanesborough, which has been part of the Mount Greylock district since the 1950s.
On Tuesday, the Mount Greylock School Committee was told that the three-person Lanesborough Elementary School Committee will draft the town's response to Adams-Cheshire's proposal.
LES Committee Chairwoman Regina DiLego is on record pointing out flaws in the Adams-Cheshire plan that make it detrimental to Lanesborough. LES Committee member Sheila Hebert also serves on the Mount Greylock School Committee, and LES Committee member P.J. Pannesco is a guidance counselor at Mount Greylock.
On Tuesday, Lanesborough Town Administrator Paul Sieloff told the Mount Greylock School Committee that the Lanesborough Board of Selectmen has no plans to address the Adams-Cheshire proposal.
"I don't think so," Sieloff said. "We passed that on to the School Committee. It's been clear it's in their bailiwick."
The LES Committee meets Thursday morning at Mount Greylock, and its response to the Adams-Cheshire proposal is on the agenda.
On Tuesday, in a vote of 5-0-1, the Mount Greylock committee sent proposed language that ties the annual capital debt apportionment to a five-year rolling enrollment average and the most recent equalized valuation numbers from the Massachusetts Department of Revenue.
The existing language in the regional agreement uses the enrollment percentages and "EQV" numbers at the time of bonding to lock in the percentages apportioned to Williamstown and Lanesborough for the life of a bond.
Facing the prospect of a 30-year bond to pay for a major renovation and expansion project, the district wants to change the language to make it more equitable.
The School Committee on Tuesday held a lengthy discussion about and ultimately rejected a proposal that would have set a floor, or "circuit breaker," on the percentage that could be paid by either town.
Officials in Williamstown suggested the circuit breaker as a way to keep Lanesborough's portion -- about 33 percent under the current enrollment/EQV formula -- from falling below 25 percent.
"The circuit breaker was, at least in part, a response to a perceived threat of Lanesborough tuitioning some students out or leaving the district altogether," Mount Greylock School Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Greene said. "If we're putting [the Adams-Cheshire proposal] to rest, the loss of a circuit breaker will be more palatable to Williamstown."
Indications from Tuesday's Williamstown Board of Selectmen meeting -- held concurrently with the School Committee meeting -- indicate otherwise.
Selectman Hugh Daley, who negotiated the circuit breaker, told the BOS that it was intended as a compromise to make up for the fact that Williamstown is giving up the certainty of having each town's share of the project known at the time of bonding.
"We are giving up that protection for 29 years, so we just want a little downside protection," Daley said. "We can let it swing, but it's gotta swing within a range.
"We are being a good partner. We are moving. We are trying to make this a more dynamic apportionment model. There's a limit to how far we can go, though."
The Williamstown Selectmen, who had no way of knowing the circuit breaker was being taken off the table at a meeting down the road, were adamant that its presence in the apportionment formula is essential.
"Everything in modified proposed agreement works to Lanesborough's advantage and not Williamstown's," Selectman Andrew Hogeland said. "For peace in the family, we should tolerate some of that. But I think it has to stop at some floor. If they can't get to he floor, we say we have an agreement already we entered into 50 years ago, let's just go with that."
BOS Chairwoman Jane Patton agreed.
"I have no problem at all saying we can go back to the very original agreement and let the voters decide," Patton said. "[The circuit breaker is] a good offer. It's a good deal. Enough."
Later this fall, school officials hope, both Lanesborough and Williamstown will hold Special Town Meetings to decide how palatable each town's voters find the proposed new apportionment formula.
On Tuesday, Sieloff and two Lanesborough residents who serve on the Mount Greylock committee argued that the new apportionment plan does not go far enough to address economic inequity between the two towns.
Committee members Chris Dodig and Richard Cohen each pitched plans that would shift more of the capital expense onto Williamstown taxpayers, arguing that the large tax-exempt properties in Williamstown (chiefly Williams College and the Clark Art Institute) add wealth to the town in ways not measured by Equalized Valuation.
"When you are trying to measure the wealth of a community, to not include that property isn't really doing that," Dodig said.
Sieloff and Dodig argued that each town's EQV for purpose of the funding should include an assessment of the towns' tax-exempt property.
According to Dodig's calculations based on current Department of Revenue figures, 71 percent of the district's EQV is in Williamstown and 29 percent is in Lanesborough.
Again using DOR numbers, Dodig said including the tax-exempt land would change that split to 75/25 and change the total apportionment split (once enrollment is factored in) by about 2 percent.
"It's not as huge as some people make it out to be," Dodidg said.
Greene said there is no way to accurately measure the value of tax-exempt land because it is tax-exempt and therefore not assessed for its market value. Although there are numbers available on the DOR website, they are not accurate.
"It's a mechanical issue but a very real one," Greene said.
At the Williamstown Board of Selectmen meeting, Town Manager Jason Hoch explained the mechanical issue
"There aren't many sales of used colleges, for instance, so you don't have a lot of good market numbers," Hoch said.
Cohen took another tack.
He suggested that instead of adding tax-exempt land to the EQV formula, the regional agreement address the towns' disparity in wealth by capping Lanesborough's share of the capital cost at 30 percent.
Cohen made his proposal as an alternative to the "circuit breaker" idea while that idea was still alive.
"My intent was not to provide a circuit breaker," Cohen said. "My intent was to provide a formula that fairly reflected the economic capabilities of the two towns. I intentionally put the number below [the current apportionment of 33 percent]. ... It's an alternative to including the tax-exempt properties.
"We all agree what we have now is not an adequate tool [to measure the towns' wealth]."
Williamstown Finance Committee Chairwoman K. Elaine Neely, who participated from the floor on Tuesday evening, told the School Committee it was unlikely that any plan that factors in the tax-exempt land would win the favor of Williamstown voters.
"I think my basic feeling on this is Williamstown would like to see both nonprofits come in and help with this project," Neely said. "But changing the formula to include whatever the questionable valuation [of tax-exempt land] is doesn't mean Williamstown taxpayers will get money from those institutions.
"It won't fly with Williamstown voters unless the institutions have agreed to pay their share, and it's highly unlikely we'll get those assurances."
Neely said Williams College has never been interested in a PILOT [payment in lieu of taxes] program with the town before, and the creation of any PILOT is a question that would go to the college's Board of Trustees, which would not make such a decision in time to influence a proposed Nov. 17 Special Town Meeting.
"Williams has never wanted to be in a position of doing a PILOT, which is not to say they're not willing to support the school in some other way," Neely said. "We need to bring the two institutions in, but I'm not sure we can do it by Nov. 17."
Mount Greylock School Committee member Wendy Penner said she believes the college will step up to the plate and support the building project. Williamstown Elementary School Committee Chairman Dan Caplinger, who participated from the floor, noted that a $1 million building renewal endowment at Williamsown Elementary School was rooted in Williams' commitment to contribute to that building project 10 12 years ago.
Dodig, who ultimately abstained from a vote to send the new apportionment language to the towns, said that the district should take more time to look at ways to make the apportionment more equitable. He argued that even if the bond begins under one funding formula, the formula could later be changed, an assertion that Greene confirmed.
But Sieloff and Green both argued that the district should have a new funding plan in place before going to the towns for approval of the school building project next spring, as school officials hope.
"I do think it's recommended we have that vote before Dec. 31," Sieloff said, referring to the cutoff to have any changes in the regional agreement in effect at the time of a spring debt exclusion vote.
"A vote before then mans you have a guaranteed plan going forward and months to sell that plan. If you lose that vote or it's unclear the agreement is going to be modified, it weakens the argument for paying for the school."
Greene, Penner, Hebert, Cohen and Gary Fuls voted in favor of sending the Lanesborough and Williamstown Boards of Selectmen a request to call a Special Town Meeting in each town.
In other business on Tuesday, the Mount Greylock School Committee revisited the issue of expanding the region to a pre-K through 12 district, heard a report from the director of the Williams Center at Mount Greylock and learned that its annual MCAS report would be delayed this year.
Dodig asked Greene to put expanded regionalization on the agenda, arguing that a push to expand the district to include Williamstown's and Lanesborough's elementary schools would bolster the district from the Adams-Cheshire threat by affirming both towns' support for the partnership. Dodig also emphasized that the Massachusetts School Building Authority offers more reimbursement points on building projects to districts that fully regionalize.
Greene reviewed the committee's decision to "back burner" the regionalization expansion and focus its energy on the building project.
"I think it would take a lot education to get people back on track thinking about [regionalization]," Greene said. "I'm fully supportive of it. I chaired the committee that looked at it."
Greene recognized that there are concerns in Williamstown about placing potential budget constraints on its elementary school if it is made part of a district. Both Neely and Caplinger confirmed that such concerns exist.
"I've been on the [Williamstown] Finance Committee for 33 years," Neely said. "I've followed Mount Greylock's budget for a long time. There have been difficulties in which Lanesborough hasn't been able to fund the budget your School Committee has put forth. And there have been a lot of compromises.
"Williamstown doesn't want to see that at the elementary school."
Caplinger agreed, but, like Greene, he served on Mount Greylock's Regional District Amendment Committee and supports broader regionalization.
"When we were going through the process of exploring regionalization, the committee's conclusion was pretty clear, but it also was clear it would take outreach to the community to gain support for it," Caplinger said. "The outreach would take time, explaining how all the benefits would play out."
Cohen noted that Lanesborough residents took notice when the Williamstown Elementary School Committee did not sign onto a letter drafted by the Mount Greylock and LES Committees to the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District.
Greene once again on Tuesday explained the reason why the WES Committee did not participate in a joint meeting of the other two districts on Sept. 3.
"Dan [Caplinger] was in Paris when this all happened," and time was of the essence, Greene said.
The director of the Williams Center at Mount Greylock attended Tuesday's meeting to give the School Committee the center's annual report about educational partnerships between the college and the junior-senior high school.
Kaatje White reported that 30 Williams College students currently are working as fellows at Mount Greylock. Although they do not receive course credit, they are paid by the college through the work study program.
Williams students play roles ranging from one-on-one tutoring to operating as lab assistants to teaching classes at Mount Greylock.
Williams students also serve as mentors to extracurricular activities like Model UN and glee club, working under Mount Greylock faculty advisers. This year, the Williams Center is running after-school programs for students whose extracurricular activities end at 4 but who need to stay on campus to wait for the single 5 p.m. "late bus" run.
Mount Greylock Superintendent Douglas Dias told the School Committee that he could not report on the district's MCAS accountability scores. The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has released the raw scores for each district but is holding back on the accountability metrics while it reconciles the MCAS numbers with last year's first use of the PARCC assessment in some of the commonwealth's districts.
Tags: Mt. Greylock High School,
