Regionalization

Post date: Oct 25, 2017 8:54:57 PM

Hi Hugh and Jason,

The attached draft regional agreement has received the go-ahead from DESE. The school committees are meeting tonight at 7pm to see if MG approves the document for handing off to the towns. The parts of the document that have changed since MG's last approval are highlighted in the PDF for your convenience. My summary of those changes is the following:

Section VIII E:

1) The state desired that we use an approach to calculating operating apportionments that explicitly dealt with apportioning the above minimum local contribution as opposed to getting to it by subtracting the minimum local from the total for each town. So, we crafted an approach that deals in "percentages of the above minimum local" in order to accommodate that need. Everything is written in percentages as opposed to purely by addition and subtraction. It's a bit more circuitous, but it is friendlier to the state and our business manager has signed off on the process and end results. The most important thing to note: this apportionment stays true to the principle of each town paying for its local elementary school costs and its portion of the middle and high school. So we are getting at the same oft-stated end, just via a different method.

2) The state also, as a result of a recent court ruling, wanted an additional "more statutory" method described in the regional agreement for the event that a district-wide vote is required in a given budget cycle. That happens when a member town rejects the budget and the school committee fails to find a ready solution to the problem and then the two towns end up in a district-wide vote to approve the budget. Our approach to providing that "more statutory" method was to say "let the towns pay the same percentage of the above minimum as they did in the prior year." It's a "stay-put" of sorts in terms of the relationship between the two towns, giving them a chance to find a better path in time for the next go-around. The last sentence is a provision for what happens if this situation occurs in preparation for the first fiscal year -- the provision splits the above minimum consistent with how our proposed apportionment would have worked for the FY17 budget as modeled by the finance working group.

Section VIII F:

1) The payment dates for the town of Lanesborough were adjusted to a 10 equal installments of 10% at a time, starting at the end of July. This change was made at the request of Lanesborough Town Hall and MG RSD's Treasurer signed off on the proposal.

I'm in touch, just wanted to keep you as up to date on this as I am...

All the best, Joe

All,

The regional agreement was amended to satisfy a concern of the Lanesborough BOS regarding the building lease terms. The updated regional agreement was filed with the Town Clerk and is on the BOS website.

The lease section was updated to include some language about usage of the building for town events (eg; annual town meeting, special meetings) and the language around improvements was changed to say the district will work with the Owner on plans for improvements.

The language changes were blessed by DESE as non-material, contextual changes. The lease agreement will be the controlling document containing the details of usage and improvements.

Please review.

Thank you,

…

Hugh