TEMPLETON – The selectboards of Phillipston and Templeton met late Wednesday afternoon to hammer out details for the district-wide meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 21 in the Narragansett Middle School auditorium. Members of the Narragansett Regional School District School Committee were also on hand to discuss the meeting, which has a single article on the warrant; that is to “see if the towns of Phillipston and Templeton will vote to approve the $19,786,889 budget for the fiscal year 2020,” which has been proposed by the committee.
The first order of business was the selection of a moderator to run the meeting. After a short discussion, Phillipston Town Moderator Kevin Flynn was picked for the job. Templeton’s John Henshaw was chosen to serve as assistant moderator in the event an overflow crowd shows up, thus requiring some voters to meet in a separate location – likely the school gymnasium.
“Our moderator — our preferred choice – would be Derek Hall,” said Templeton Selectboard Chair Mike Currie, “but he is unavailable for the meeting. Also, as he is a sergeant on the police force, he had the presence to recuse himself from budget matters that he thought would affect public safety.”
“(The moderator) is a very important position,” Currie added. “The meeting must be conducted impartially, especially when you wind up having the joint event that we’re about to have on the 21st. I don’t think we have the issue of which town gets their moderator; it’s basically choosing the best person. I hope that we wind up having a good discussion by a moderator who is willing to have patience.”
Templeton Selectboard member Jeff Bennett said the last time there was a district meeting, the moderator picked for that meeting was former Templeton Town Moderator Rob Hubbard.
Bennett said, “So, I would make a motion to have the Phillipston moderator take this meeting, to sort of rotate the job between the two towns.”
The choice of Flynn was unanimous. The choice of Henshaw was tentative, given that he had not – as of Wednesday’s meeting – responded to an email from Templeton Selectboard member Diane Haley Banks inquiring about his availability.
District Superintendent Chris Casavant said he had been contacted by several people urging that votes at the district meeting be taken by paper ballot.
Town clerks Karin Foley of Phillipston and Carol Harris of Templeton each gave a brief explanation of how the use of paper ballots could be organized at what is expected to be a large meeting. Foley said multiple votes would likely require the use of different-colored ballots.
In the end, however, Foley said, “I would really recommend that you try not to have paper ballots, because it takes a very long time (to count) and I understand we’re expecting over 500 people.”
The district-wide meeting was necessitated by the failure of Templeton voters, twice, to approve NRSD budgets proposed by the School Committee.
In May, Phillipston town meeting voters handily approved their share of the district budget, which included a Proposition 2 ½ override that would have cost the town just over $93,000. The override was subsequently endorsed in balloting in the annual town election.
However, at their annual town meeting, Templeton voters shot down the proposed FY20 school budget, including the override, which would have cost taxpayers just over $988,000. An adjusted budget proposal was then rejected at a subsequent special town meeting.
As a result, the district-wide meeting was called in order to settle upon a school district budget, hopefully, once and for all.
“There may be amendments made on the 21st,” said Flynn, who also serves as Phillipston’s Chief Administrative Officer, “but we will end up with a budget.