Letter: Together, Cool heads will prevail

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To the Editor:

Rather tragically at Thursday night's Select Board meeting, we lost one of our own. The lesson made apparent by this tragedy is that our current system is broken. We need better and more timely communication; we need openness; we need the needs of the town of be first; we need more professionalism; and we need an environment free of fear.

So what remains for us to do is understand this problem did not develop overnight and that it will take some time and hard work to make the needed changes. We must make our concerns heard through our votes on Town Election Day on May 5 and at the annual town meeting on May 12 to create the first big step toward making needed repairs and healing our town.


As we move toward the future, it will be important to focus not only on naming the issues but even more importantly on how the issues might best be solved. It won’t be easy. There will be a fair amount of misinformation we will have to pick through to get to the information we need to make good decisions that pass the test of time. This will be a bit of a long road and it will be hard work. But if we do this together calmly and carefully, I know we will be successful.

So today, let’s resolve ourselves to harnessing our passion and use it to work together to create a much brighter future for Dalton!
 

ROBERT COLLINS
Collins is a member of the Dalton Select Board.

 

 

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CBRSD School Committee OKs $36M Budget

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
DALTON, Mass. — The Central Berkshire Regional School Committee approved a gross final budget of $36,643,001 for fiscal 2026, an increase of 2.70 percent over this year. 
 
The biggest cause of the increase is from insurances. The district's active health insurance premiums increased by 16 percent; retirees had an increase of 20 percent, and a 3 percent increase in dental, said Gregory Boino, director of finance and operations.
 
Another large increase was for special education transportation costs, which increased $135,000, "and it's just to meet the actual expenditures where we're living right now," Boino said. 
 
The district's Special Education Out of District Tuition line decreased by $214,350 because students are aging out of those out-of-district placements, he said. 
 
The Finance Committee also decreased the other post-employment benefits, or OPEB, amount by $350,000, so next year, the district will be funding it with $50,000, Boino said. 
 
The Finance Committee discussed how there is a deep need for the community to petition the state to change Chapter 70 education aid and rural aid, School Committee member Paul Farella said prior to the budget update. 
 
"The way that they work makes it extremely difficult for us to make a budget that is fair to towns when you have some that have high percentages of assessment and others with negative it can create a sticky situation," he said.
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