The Berkshires — The Eight Town Regional School District Planning Board is looking for funding from the state to help with a projected shortfall.
At a meeting on August 23, Project Manager Jake Eberwein told members of the board that it is facing a $150,000 budgetary shortfall and that it would be out of money by October 1. Towards the end of the August 23 meeting, members agreed to make a formal budgetary request of $15,000 each to the eight towns and two school districts represented by the board.
At the Wednesday, September 14 board meeting, Eberwein told the board that while the formal requests went out, both he and Chairman Lucy Prashker have been in contact with State Sen. Adam Hinds and a representative of State Sen. Joanne M. Comerford about potential state funding. “Sen. Hines couldn’t have been more supportive and complimentary of our work,” Eberwein said. “He wants to lend an additional voice and leverage in supporting our work in his final months as a legislator, but also he wants to help on the funding side.”
Eberwein said that he was told by Sen. Hinds that the senate would be taking up the state’s supplemental budget in early October. “I don’t want to say that he was extremely confident, but I certainly walked away from the conversation with him feeling pretty good about the prospects of getting funding towards the reorganization work,” Eberwein said. “It may be better to hold and suspend our funding requests to the towns as we wait for the decision on potential funding. What we’re proposing tonight is that the board sends a letter to the towns explaining that we don’t want to ask for money if we don’t need it.”
However, Peter Dillon, Superintendent of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District, said that West Stockbridge would be soon having a special town meeting which would include the board’s funding request as an agenda item. “If we miss that window with West Stockbridge, I don’t think they would call another special town meeting just for this,” Dillon said.
“The letter should say that if you would like to table the budget request until after [the determination of the] supplemental budget, that would be okay with us,” Prashker said. “If you want to go forward with a special town meeting and make a request for up to $15,000 if it is needed, that’s fine too. But we should give the towns the option.”
The board eventually voted to approve Prashker sending the letter to the towns and school districts phrased in the way that she suggested. “I think that, if all goes according to plan [with funding], I think the state is signaling to us that regionalization work is important across the Commonwealth, and they need to invest in it,” Eberwein added. “Otherwise, I don’t know how this region and other regions across the state are going to tackle this incredibly complicated work.”
