PHILLIPSTON – Voters at Wednesday’s annual town meeting overwhelmingly approved moving ahead with a Proposition 2½ override of just over $93,000 to fund the town’s share of the Narragansett Regional School District budget for fiscal year 2020. The override, which will be considered by voters casting ballots in the May 20 annual town election, would help plug a nearly $1.1 million hole in the district’s budget.
While the issue generated a fair amount of discussion, the final vote to move ahead with the question was 60 in favor, with 12 opposed.
Residents of Templeton, the other member-town of the district, will decide next Wednesday whether to endorse an override of just over $988,000. If the proposal passes town meeting muster, the question will move to the annual town election, also scheduled for May 20.
“The schools and the school committee,” said resident Richard Degon, “have come before us to ask my family and yours to make a financial sacrifice. They’re asking us to support a budget that requires an override. And even with the override, they (the school department) will cut teachers, consolidate the elementary schools, turn the Phillipston Elementary School into a combined kindergarten, and bus elementary-age children to Templeton.”
A new elementary school in Templeton, built at a reported cost of $47.5 million, is scheduled to open this fall.
Degon worried aloud that plans by the NRSD will result in longer bus rides and larger class sizes, thus impacting the quality of education. He went on to say he would support the override, but only because he feared losing the town’s elementary school altogether. He added doing away with negotiated salary increases of 1 percent would “all but eliminate the need” for an override.
“What we know,” said Superintendent Chris Casavant, “is that this district as a whole is not large enough to have two traditional (K through grade 5) elementary schools. It’s not. Nine-hundred-sixty-five-thousand dollars of salary comes from this building. It’s projected there will be 111 students here next year. Of that 111 students, only 71 of them are from Phillipston.”
Phillipston Finance Committee member Ruth French said, “We got some budget stats that said, if there is no override, there will be no students at Phillipston Memorial Elementary School next year. If that is true, that means this school gets closed by the state, because if you don’t utilize it, it can no longer be considered a school. This is our way of life; this is our community center, and we don’t want to lose that.”
French drew applause as she went on to say that, should the override fail, she would rather have the state take over administration of the district’s schools “than to take our students out of Phillipston.”
Margaret Hughes, co-Chair of the Finance Committee and Chair of the NRSD School Committee, said, “People say the district is ‘doing this’ to your kids. What’s doing it to the kids is not voting for this override. We spend many hours on this budget to be able to provide an education to our kids, keeping them where they need to be to get the best education. And if you don’t vote this override – and I do realize there’s another town in this district – you will force our hand to have to take action. We have not voted on anything other than this plan and this budget.”
“Once we get to the point where have clear indications from both towns,” she continued, “then the school committee will review things and discuss what needs to happen. We need your support to provide what these kids need.”
The overall FY20 budget of approximately $20.3 million, includes an increase from FY19 of $880,000 for instructional services, an additional $200,000 for operations and maintenance, and $83,000 more for administrative costs. At last count, 991 Templeton students attended district schools, with another 203 from Phillipston.