EMERGENCY MEETING
NOTICE
BOARD OF SELECTMEN
MONDAY JULY 1, 2013
6:30 PM
690 PATRIOTS ROAD
THE BOARD OF SELECTMEN WILL HOLD AN EMERGENCY MEETING MONDAY
JULY 1ST AT 6:30 PM FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF OPENING A WARRANT FOR A
SPECIAL TOWN MEETING AT WHICH MEETING THE TOWN WILL CONSIDER A NEWLY PROPOSED
ASSSESSMENT FOR THE NARRAGANSETT REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT.
How can the town spend more money than it can raise and appropriate? It can't, and the same override has already failed twice. So we now will be forced to attend yet another STM. Gansett Greatness in action? How about a bad civics lesson for the students.
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DeleteDown hear on the lower forty we like to say, the devil is in the details. Don't look like this one can be blamed on the Red Barn Group.
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ReplyDeleteIf the school gang/supporters pack this meeting and get what they want,will it be the 3rd shit show in Templeton in one year?
ReplyDeleteBoB Greene are you trying to jam the blog. This is not a town meeting!
ReplyDeletePlease attend the Selectmen meeting tomorrow and see where we need to/can go from here. This will put us in the states hands for sure, the one thing most were against at the last STM was letting the states hands on Tempelton. Be careful what you wish for. Are we moving forwards?
If people voted YES the state wouldn't be coming in. Problem could have been avoided. Tough lesson to learn but all in the process for a reason. I've talked to places like Leominster and Lunenburg and they expressed some of their problems and were surprised our school system has been as patient as it has. The state may be the only one to fix these problems. The Town was warned before elections that the school has spent all its stabilization fund with no help from the town. I know Mrs. Weis made some bad choices thus why she is gone and Mrs. Miller is here! Quabbin had the same thing happen and after attending our town meetings recently I'm losing faith that we can make the right choice so the state will probably be the only choice.
DeleteI believe the one objective of tomorrow night's meeting is to open the warrant for a STM. That STM's purpose is to to either accept or reject the school committee's re-certified assessment for Templeton.
ReplyDeleteThat is it. Yet another STM will give the voters in Templeton a chance to reject or accept the NRSD's assessment to Templeton.
If this STM is not held, then NRSD gets the full assessment, once the 45 day time period lapses. Then the Town would have to cut $691,000 from town accounts for the FY 14 which begins tomorrow.
This is all because the NRSD Committee voted to re-certify Templeton's assessment on June 12th rather than wait until after the election on June 25th.
If you do not like being forced to hold yet another STM, please contact the school committee and the superintendent. The BOS did NOT create this situation. The school committee did. Ask them why they voted this way. Ask them why they didn't wait until after the override results to call for a joint town meeting with Phillipston the way Ashburnham Westminster Regional School District did.
978-939-5661 Superintendent's Office
Mrs. Farrell is correct the BOS are following the process! Not forcing the town to make any decision! Now if the towns people wanted to avoid these huge cuts they would have voted to give the school the money it needs. It all comes out of the same budget and the school committee has certified that after cutting the band uniforms recently they have cut what they is acceptable . It's not easy but sad that people get so heated about these meetings and don't take the time to learn the process.
ReplyDelete*what they think is acceptable* (phones) ugh
DeleteFor the people
DeleteI respectfully disagree with your statement "Not forcing the town to make any decision".
The purpose of the next STM will be to accept or reject the NRSD assessment to Templeton, which is $691,000 more than voters approved in May.
The Towns people have voted TWICE to turn down an OVERRIDE for the school! While the school committee feels their assessment to Templeton is acceptable, apparently the voters do NOT!
The tactic the school committee employed was re-certifying the budget BEFORE the override (June 12th)so that Templeton would be FORCED to give the school district $691,000 after the 45 days elapsed IF THE SELECTMEN DID NOT CALL FOR ANOTHER STM!
The School committee HAD other options. The school committee COULD have waited until AFTER the override and then called for a joint town meeting with Templeton and Phillipston.( like Ashburnham Westminster)
After two failed override votes, the BOS are being responsive to the voters to hold this STM. The VOTERS at the ballot box have stated quite clearly that they do not support the additional assessment of $691,000 for the schools. They did not vote the accept the school department budget at town meeting in May either. They seem to disagree with the school committee. Therefore the responsible thing is to hold yet another STM for the voters to decide yet again if they support an additional $691,000 for the schools at the expense of public safety. The voters at town meeting have a right to make that decision. I will do everything I can to make sure the will of the voters is followed - whether I agree or disagree with the voters! I believe that is my job as a selectman.
Time will tell if the voters wish to gut public safety in the Town of Templeton.
There seems to be no compromise coming from the school committee. If band uniforms were the biggest sacrifice the school committee could come up with, there seems to be no common ground to begin a rational discussion.
Does everyone realize that we can only raise so much on the recap sheet per MGL. Therefore the town only has so much to spend for the fiscal year. the amount raised from taxes and other receipts is only so much. If we certify the (higher) school Budget there is only a certain amount left for the rest of the town. Yes I am sorry that the override did not pass, but where will our town be without a police dept, or highway dept, or fire and rescue? look back at the Budget sheets from town meeting, where do you all propose to get the money? Even if the state comes in the town cannot raise more than it can raise. get it. If your paycheck is only so much and your mortgage eats up 75% of it that leaves you with only 25% to spend on everything else. something has to give. What kind of town do you think this will be with only 1 police officer (chief) limited fire and rescue, no highway dept, burials only one day a week, even cutting from the other town depts will not get you much more.
ReplyDeleteWhen I spoke with some other parents after the town meeting many of them didn't understand the process that the town can only raise a certain amount of. When I asked then why they voted for all the town dept budgets if they knew the school need more. their answer was "oh I didn't know how it worked we just wanted the money for the school. well I understand that but the town cannot just pull money out of the air, with the failure of the override we only have a certain amount of money to go around to all. So my question to the school comm is - where do you propose to cut from the town budget to get the money for the school? What town services do you think we don't need?
It is too bad the money was wasted on 252 Baldwinville Rd, I'm sure the school could use the $135,000+ that we have to spend on a bond payment this year.
One more thing I have no problem with the state coming in because they will look at everything including L&W
ReplyDeleteHas anyone considered what this will do for your homeowners insurance when we have limited fire protection?
ReplyDeletesomething to consider, and this is a big if, but if the town is asked / told to cut town budget bye 600 thousand plus, I hope the school district has a slush fund to paye for snow removal because the town will have no time nor the money to do snow removal at the NRHS distict property. The town will barely have the money to clears it roads in a manner according to public safety. Yes the town can deficit spend for snow & ice but I would not see any good reason for the town to go further into the hole because some entity did not properly plan and were not willing to compromise. But again, this is a big if because for all we know the state could come in and set a budget lower than what the district asked for.
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ReplyDeletedid not think the comment at 5:28 AM needed to be repeated at 5:40 AM, my bad
ReplyDeletebesides band uniforms could someone please post where the rest of the $691000 was going. I understand the school needs money but at the risk of public safety.
ReplyDeleteso maybe it is because i haven't been part of the gansett greatness group, but i have to admit i'm a bit confused... they claim that the school has been using "free cash" to cover the expenses over the years, and they ran out of "free cash", so my math is not all that great, but the way i see it is that they must have had millions in free cash to cover $600,000 + every year over all these years without needing an override. If all they can come up with to cut is band uniforms, than that is a real problem. there is so much wasted spending within the entire school system, they certainly can come up with more than that to cut. if they won't compromise with cutting positions, maybe they should look at longer school days, and have no school on Fridays, save on heat and electricity and food budget for at least one day a week. eliminate the February and April vacations, making the school year end sooner-again saving on utilities and food. do they really need to serve breakfast? teachers that are also department heads, make more $, cut the department head extra money... cut the police officer that is there every day all day, cut the vice principal at the middle school, cut at least one maybe two administrators in the superintendents office - not really sure what the curriculum person does - the curriculum hasn't changed in years; cut the adjustment counselors at the middle school and high school, it seems like they want everything, and are not willing to compromise on anything. all we hear is about how the kids will lose - what exactly would they lose, other than extra curricula activities- i haven't heard of one thing they will lose-the option of paying a higher user fee, is not something that i would like to see, but if it needs to happen, it needs to happen. cut some aides and maybe the teachers can actually do what they are paid for instead of the aides doing it. just my opinions...
ReplyDeleteThe full time school police officer had been soliciting votes for the override because he was afraid of losing his job, NOT because of the Kids.
DeleteThe administration DOES NOT CARE if we have to cut Police and Fire personnel because they will still get their HIGH uncut pay for doing less. The School Committee and others involved with the budget shenanigans should be ashamed to crawl out of bed in the morning. The KIDS suffer because of YOU, not because of the suffering townspeople.
ReplyDeleteI hope that everyone reads what Zebra 12:35 A.M. had to say! This is going to be a rough one! I hope the older people can understand why they need to go to a STM, to repeat what they have said twice at the polls. It would have been more productive for the kids to earn the money for their uniforms. To earn anything in this world, would teach them the value of working for a goal. I would rather buy something from these kids, than hand over uniforms, or anything else they need. Working for material things, builds character. Same for the school people, there is such a disconnect between how the town stands, and what these fools want!! We are asked to pay 87,000 for rent on Athol Rd., have no money in the bank and the Echo Hill bunch wants us to make 252 a Town Hall!! Oh yes, it can look like a Wallmart with it's false front. The town could have had CPC funds clean up ET, but NO!! GOVERNMENT IS RUN BY THOSE WHO SHOW UP !! Does everyone get that yet?? Bev.
Deleteis there any bylaw that requires the town offices to be located in Templeton ...im sure Gardner has a ton of office space available cheaper!!!!!
ReplyDeleteA very interesting meeting tonight at the Selectmen's Office. I will let Julie fill you all in, but the one thing I will tell you, the Red Barn Crew were front and center with VW doing her best to give the Selectmen shit, just because she can. Give it a rest Virginia! We can see through the concern you have for the town, and the ABSOLUTE RULE, that every I, be dotted, and T crossed. Like the "red barn" people always followed the rules!!!LMAO at that one!! People are not dumb, and by May they will have had enough of all of you. My opinion, Bev.
DeleteThat's a good one Mike C. The selectmen could still move to ET, it would just be a lot riskier as to whether or not we'll ever be able to fix the building.
ReplyDeleteThe "strategy" of the NRSD, if that's what it truly is, stinks. It appears to be trickery, a way to get what "they" (School Board) want without passing a Prop 2 1/2 override at the ballot box. It's not a good omen for how NRSD wants to work with the town. Single-issue voters are a minority of voters at town election. They were a majority at Town Meeting. Well, maybe they figured out a way to get what they want, and too bad for other town services. Gansett Greatness is not Templeton Greatness, evidently. I don't know how the budget will be cut to accomodate the school. But it can't be pretty. And I still think there is something wrong here. Why does the town general budget automatically face the ax to the tune of $691k? It was approved by a majority at Town Meeting. So the selectmen missed a deadline, and were fooled by a strategic move by the School Board. So that means the town budget is automatically cut? Doesn't make sense to me. We have x dollars that can legally be raised and appropriated. We have a town budget. We had two override votes, and both times they were defeated. The 2nd time by a greater margin than the first time. In spite of that, we are faced with cutting the budget because the NRSD school board outplayed someone. That's not democracy.
Well I will say it again, the NRHS school district should look to see what Winchendon and Gardner schools pay to have the schools plowed because at this rate, the town of Templeton will have neither the time or money to plow the schools out, that will fall to the district to bid it out and come up with the funds as the town will not be able to do favors and plow the district out, not even for 25 grand, we will simply be trying to keep the roads of the town open. We may not even be able to allow much OT for snow removal and sanding. I do not believe it is a good idea to deficit spend, as in go in the hole to help out an entity that was unwilling to compromise. Perhaps Gansett greatness can find someone too do it for free. Of course this all depends on how the school budget goes.
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