Finance chair demands role in school district budget

“If you’re looking for public documents that are available, we’ll comply with that in a heartbeat. But some of the information you’re looking for takes 6 to 8 hours of research." -- Berkshire Hills School Committee Chair Stephen Bannon, responding to Sharon Gregory's demand for a different format of detailed school district financial reports

Great Barrington — In league with those who opposed the renovation of Monument Mountain Regional High School, Finance Committee Chair Sharon Gregory is now attempting to actively engage her town committee in the budgeting processes of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District, pushing the committee far beyond its traditional purview.

The Tuesday (December 16) Finance Committee meeting was almost entirely devoted to an interrogation of Berkshire Hills Regional School District officials. No vote was taken by the committee.

Questioning Superintendent Peter Dillon and School Committee Chair — and select board member — Stephen Bannon, Gregory insisted the district provide the detailed financial analyses she is demanding.

A leading voice advocating the rejection of a $23 million state subsidy to renovate Monument Mountain Regional High School, and a proponent at last year’s town meeting of a $200,000 cut to the town’s contribution to the school district, Gregory has begun making requests for special reports and analyses that Berkshire Hills Regional School District officials say go beyond existing public reporting documents. To comply with her requests, school officials have noted, would require more staff time than the district has available.

At Tuesday night’s (December 16) Finance Committee meeting, school officials pushed back, reminding Gregory that they represent a separate municipal entity with its own board that is responsible for its own budget. While they expressed a willingness to provide the Finance Committee with whatever information it needs to make a recommendation to the Town Meeting, they suggested that to provide Gregory with the answers and information at the granular level of detail she requested would necessitate the hiring of additional personnel.

It was another installment in a running fight. Last month the Finance Committee approved a petition, authored in part by Gregory, demanding sweeping changes in a number of areas of school district policy. The petition was adopted over the objection of two members who had not been shown the document beforehand. The petition went nowhere at the next week’s Select Board meeting, as the Board refused to allow a formal presentation.

Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon and BHRSD Business Manager Sharon Harrison answer questions during Finance Committee meeting.
Berkshire Hills Superintendent Peter Dillon and BHRSD Business Manager Sharon Harrison answer questions during Finance Committee meeting.

The details hidden in the agenda for Tuesday night’s Finance Committee meeting similarly were not unveiled until one o’clock in the afternoon before the meeting was to begin, when Gregory submitted a long and detailed list of recommendations and questions to Superintendent Peter Dillon and School Committee Chair Stephen Bannon, although she had invited them to attend the meeting several weeks earlier.

“We got these questions five hours ago,” said Dillon at the meeting. To answer them properly, he said, would require significant effort from him or someone in his office, and distract him from his job “working with principals to support kids and learning,” rather than “chasing rabbits down rabbit holes endlessly.”

The proper arena for a sustained discussion of school finances, he said, is at the School Committee: “These kinds of conversations should be undertaken as a school district…composed of three towns.”

From left, Finance Committee members Michael Wise, Leigh Davis, and Gregory.
From left, Finance Committee members Michael Wise, Leigh Davis, and Gregory.

Gregory has been after the district to provide more comprehensive financial and enrollment reports because, she says, Great Barrington pays 70 percent of the school budget. She says her attempts to delve into the school’s books and analyze them have been time-consuming and difficult. “I want things in a central place for the budget and planning,” Gregory said.

Gregory’s recommendation memo is looking, for instance, for figures that break down and separate out various expenses and revenues, enrollment figures, and creation of 5- to 10-year revenue trends. She is also looking for a summary for the district’s unfunded pension liabilities, an area of focus she is visiting upon the town’s finances as well.

At last night’s meeting, Gregory said that consolidating information would reduce the number of requests of the district. “People,” she said, had been asking her for this information. She even offered to help the district create an Excel spreadsheet for certain items.

CROPPEDHarrison Bannon

“I’m not sure we need assistance,” Bannon said. “If people are asking then you need to send them to us,” Bannon said, “because we’re a separate municipal entity, and they really shouldn’t be going through you.”

“If you’re looking for public documents that are available,” Bannon went on, “we’ll comply with that in a heartbeat. But some of the information you’re looking for takes 6 to 8 hours of research, and … there are not a lot of other parties asking. If they were, we’d probably be budgeting for an assistant superintendent or business manager.”

“I want to understand your budget enough to make a recommendation at Town Meeting,” said Finance Committee member Michael Wise. He expressed frustration with his inability to draw enough data from the district’s website due to a meltdown last summer from which the site is still recovering.

Committee member Leigh Davis expressed annoyance at Gregory’s late addition to the agenda. “I just got this,” she said. “And I feel quite uncomfortable with this.” She suggested that it may not be the role of the Finance Committee to advise on school finances to such a degree, however tied to Great Barrington purse strings they are. “You have your own [budget] process,” she said, looking at Dillon, Bannon and the district’s Business Manager Sharon Harrison.

Leigh Davis ponders role Sharon Gregory proposes for Finance Committee.
Leigh Davis ponders role Sharon Gregory proposes for Finance Committee.

Gregory countered that the Finance Committee is charged with being “advisory.” According to the town charter, the committee is, indeed, an advisory board, “making recommendations to Town Meeting on the Town budget and all warrant articles.”

The fuss over the district’s finances is timely — the topic of funding the schools has consumed Great Barrington politics since last summer, before the November vote on whether to renovate 48-year-old Monument Mountain Regional High School. But a long list of unaddressed issues has led to the perception among enough Great Barrington voters that the funding anvil has dropped in their laps — with the corollary that Stockbridge and West Stockbridge aren’t carrying their weight – resulting in the town’s rejection of the renovation proposal and the $23 million in state aid.

That has thrown the school district under the microscope, and Gregory, who was an executive at Jane Iredale Mineral Cosmetics, thinks she knows how to look into it. She is a stickler for clarity in budgets, the town’s included.

Sharon Harrison explained the challenges of creating a budget when so much is dependent on the state’s rules and inefficient timing. The district is “not like a private company,” she said.

But Gregory kept in pursuit of the recommendations on her list, going back to costs per student.

Finally, Bannon snapped. “I’m really starting to get annoyed,” he said. “You’re the only one asking for this stuff. If people are asking you, send them to us, pack our meetings. I’m not saying our budget is perfect. I want more people at our budget meetings. Tell them to come and ask.”