Great Barrington — After Berkshire Hills Regional School District asked the Farmington River District to pay more for its students to attend Berkshire Hills’ schools, Farmington River came back with a counter proposal that was too good to reject: a four percent increase for each of the next three years.
The Farmington River counter offer was announced at the Berkshire Hills School Committee meeting December 11 in the Monument Mountain Regional High School library, and although Berkshires Hills had initially demanded a 6 percent, 4 percent, 4 percent increase over the next three years, the committee voted to accept the Farmington River proposal.
That counter offer had come in response to Berkshire Hills Regional School District’s offer — approved by the school committee last month — of a one-year six percent increase, after Farmington Hills originally offered the district two percent for each of the three years.
Due to escalating budgets and rising taxpayer tempers over what many feel is a payment system from outlying districts that overburdens Berkshire Hills — and particularly Great Barrington — the district got tough at the first opportunity.
“I think it’s worth the risk to give them the hard line,” school committee member Daniel Weston had said at the November 21 meeting. “Next year might be a bloodbath, but in the long run it may work out better for us.”
But it wasn’t easy. That six percent request from Berkshire Hills could have resulted in Farmington River taking their money — potentially $630,000 — to neighboring Lee, where Farmington River also has a tuition contract. During its November deliberations the school committee had agonized over the decision to take the risk of both the loss of that money, and the 85 students from Otis and Sandisfield currently enrolled at Berkshire Hills.
Several members of the committee and audience pointed out the human costs, since children might be forced to leave the schools they’ve grown accustomed to. But worries over taxpayer pocketbooks won out. “If they’re not willing to pay to get a good education here, then they don’t share our values,” committee member Richard Dohoney said in November.
Given the four percent counter proposal, it appears Farmington River’s values may not be far off, after all. But it appears that wasn’t an easy decision for them, either. Their school committee was split on their December 1 vote, according to Farmington River School District Chair Alicia Dunaj.
Farmington River’s schools end at 6th grade. For 2015 that district pays $6,826 and $7,524 for its middle and high school students, respectively, to attend Berkshire Hills. Those numbers will rise consecutively up to $8,464 for high school students by FY18 at the four percent increase.
This narrows, but doesn’t close the gap, and committee members appear intent upon working towards that goal. The cost per pupil at Berkshire Hills ranges anywhere from roughly $8,000 to around $16,000, depending on what costs are included in the figure. The district calculated a formula for a more accurate per pupil cost of $8,630 for the out-of-district students, eliminating certain costs that would not affect the final number, such as transportation, since Berkshire Hills does not provide it for those students.
Farmington River Superintendent Jo Ann Austin said in an email that the three-year agreement was an “equitable product of the negotiation process…with the focus where it belongs — on our students.” Austin commended the school committees and particularly Chair Dunaj and Berkshire Hills Chair Stephen Bannon.
“We are all interested in doing what is best for our children,” she wrote.
Thursday night’s marathon Berkshire Hills school committee meeting indicated that what’s best for the children — and even the wallet — prevailed.
“Four, four, four gets us a lot closer than we were,” Weston said. “This buys us time without putting us at risk, without bankrupting Farmington River and without losing kids we like to see in our district.” He added that there should be a “goal of making it better soon.”
“I don’t think we could operate this district if we lost these kids,” committee member Fred Clark said. Clark was the only member to vote against accepting Farmington River’s offer on the principal that he wished it was closer to the six, four, four offer from Richmond Consolidated Schools. Richmond also has a tuition contract with Berkshire Hills, though that district sends fewer students, as Richmond schools end at 8th grade.
Richard Dohoney said he would have preferred a six, four, four percent arrangement, but “four, four, four is a pill I could definitely swallow.”
“We’re away from the brink now, as far as I’m concerned,” he added, noting the two percent difference between the ask and the get. Dohoney voted in favor, saying while he had concerns about the process of arriving at these numbers, “we desperately want these kids and will do anything to keep them…and they want to stay.”
That was made evident by a group of Farmington River parents who attended Thursday night’s meeting. Farmington River PTA President Sheri De Celle said the group came in “support for your efforts on our behalf. A lot of parents have a lot of strong emotions about wanting their kids to come here.” De Celle suggested keeping an open dialogue between districts, not waiting until the “last minute” to make these decisions. She said her town had struggled to make a commitment in “advance of budgeting…then having to get approval from the town for that increased payment and in falling short and having to make some tough decisions about how to write the check.”
Upon learning of the counter offer of four percent, School Committee Chair Bannon had earlier said, “What we had originally wanted over four years would have been a total of 17 percent. What they’re offering is 15 percent.”
Bannon said it was a good step for working together with Farmington River on “smaller items,” and larger ones, such as how to “come together as maybe one district.”
Addressing the Farmington River parents, Fred Clark summed up the challenge of the negotiation process. “…We have the district that we want to have… the right size…the right programs…there are a lot of fabulous things going on…we just want to do justice to our member towns in terms of…equal, fair pay.”
