PHILLIPSTON – A Special Town Meeting being held Wednesday night will offer two options to cover a shortfall in the town’s share of the Narragansett Regional School District budget.
The STM will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 30, at 7 p.m. in the Phillipston Memorial Building.
There are only two articles on the warrant, both of which call for coming up with the $194,395 the town needs to fully fund its share of the nearly $27 million Narragansett Regional School District’s budget, which was approved by 575 voters from Phillipston and Templeton at an August district meeting.
The articles give different options for covering the town’s share of the budget. Article 1 asks voters to “raise and appropriate” or “transfer from other funds…an additional $194,395 to supplement” the $2.1 million Phillipston voters approved for the school district at a May Annual Town Meeting, less than the $2.3 million which the district proposed. If Article 1 is approved it’s estimated it would add just under 50 cents to the tax rate.
Instead of appropriating or transferring funds to fully cover the town’s share of the budget, Article 2 proposes transferring $194,395 from Phillipston’s stabilization fund, which currently has $1,288,000.
Templeton’s share of the school district budget is just over $9.8 million. According to the town’s website, “Templeton, by law, must now pay this ‘bill’ and must either make budget reductions or seek additional revenue in the form of an override to balance the FY27 budget. The budget deficit created by the vote at the district-wide meeting is $1,160,186, which represents about 13.3% of the municipal services budget.”
As a result, a Special Town Meeting was held Monday, where voters were asked to consider a nearly $1.4 million Proposition 2 ½ override to both meet the town’s obligation to the district and, according to town officials, prevent drastic cuts in municipal personnel and services.
Failure of the override, according to the website, would result in the loss of six police officer positions and a reduction in police coverage for the town. The Public Works Department, according to town officials, would “lose all its employees except for the director and a part-time custodian who cleans town buildings. This is a loss of seven full-time employees.”
In addition, the Fire Department would lose two firefighter positions, while staff and operating hours for the Senior Center and library would also be reduced, and there would reductions in the budgets of the treasurer’s and assessor’s offices.