The Berkshires — The Eight Town Regional School District Planning Board is looking at a shortfall of $150,000 in its budget.
The board has been working on the potential merger of Berkshire Hills and Southern Berkshire regional school districts. Over the past several months as part of the potential merger, the board has been looking at a model that would create a new combined high school in Great Barrington for grades 9 through 12, with grades 6 through 8 remaining at Mt. Everett Regional High School in Sheffield.
At the Tuesday, August 23 board meeting, Project Manager Jake Eberwein offered his budget projections for the Fiscal 2023 in which he revealed the potential shortfall. Board Chair Lucy Prashker told members that, as projected by Eberwein, the board would be out of money by October 1.
Prashker said that the board should officially contact member towns to ask for funding. “I do think the timing is a challenge,” Prashker said. “To go back to the towns and make the ask, have special town meetings convened and vote, that’s not going to happen in time for October. So, we will be out of money and not supported this fall unless we can find other funding sources.”
Board member Jonathan Sylbert, who is the chairman of the Monterey Finance Committee, proceeded to make a motion for both school districts to pay for the shortfall through their received rural aid. However, there was discussion and debate on whether or not both districts were receiving equivalent rural aid.
Eventually, Sylbert altered his motion to recommend that both districts pay $60,000 each to make up $120,000 to pay for the shortfall.
This led provoked further discussion and debate on whether or not the shortfall should be funded through rural aid, American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, or some other way. Stockbridge Select Board member Patrick White said that he has a problem with the school districts using rural aid to make up for the shortfall.
“We can use ARPA funds for any government purpose and a vote of just simply the Select Board of that town,” White said. “Stockbridge still has over $300,000 in unallocated ARPA funds, and I could put this on the next agenda and get a vote on it. With the vote of the Select Board, we can justify this as an unexpected expense and also transfer money between the town’s reserve fund and ARPA funds. My suggestion is we make a motion for $25,000 from each town. If some of the towns can’t do it, because they’ve already allocated all their funds, I would have no problem which is why it’s maybe a little bit more than what is needed. I simply don’t believe that the only option we have is from these rural funds.”
“I have to speak against this,” Southern Berkshire Regional School District Committee member Bonnie Silvers said. “As a member of the school committee and as a citizen of Sheffield, I don’t see how taking our rural aid and putting it into this can do anything other than truthfully anger our constituents. If the towns opted to vote to put up their town’s money, that’s separate. But I don’t think we would be fiscally responsible in our actions if we were to take this rural aid and turn it over to this effort.” Prashker said.
Eventually, after a lengthy discussion, along with several moments of budgetary calculations by board members, Sheffield Finance Committee member Colin Smith amended the motion such that the committee would formally ask for $14,000 from each of the eight towns, and $20,000 from each school district to make up the budgetary shortfall.
Unlike Sylbert’s original motion asking the school districts for funding from rural aid, the amendment made by Smith did not specify where funding from the towns and school districts should come from.
“I would like to point out to this group that this is a once-in-a-generation project,” White said. “It’s not up to me whether or not my town supports it because we’re going to bring this to the voters. We’ve all worked too hard for the past two years on this project to let this slide.”
The board continued on a lengthy debate on whether or not the committee’s monetary request should be based on other methods, to the point where Great Barrington Select Board Chairman Steve Bannon said, “I think we’ve gone down a rabbit hole that we can’t get out of.”
“There are 10 government agencies, including eight towns and two school districts,” Bannon said. “It is not up to us to tell them where the money is coming from. Each one gives us $15,000. If Stockbridge wants to give it from its ARPA funds, and their lawyers say that it’s fine, terrific. Great Barrington has a pot of money somewhere in its budget. I think we’ve made this way too complicated.”
Smith eventually changed his motion to go along with Bannon’s suggestion for the school committee to request both school districts and all eight member towns for $15,000 each. The board eventually voted to approve Smith’s motion, with the only vote against the motion from Jane Burke from the Southern Berkshire Regional School District Committee.
“If we don’t get the $150,000 from the towns and school districts, we will have to reconvene and figure out what to do next,” Prashker said.
See video below of the Eight Town Regional School District Planning Board’s meeting on Tuesday, August 23:
