Wachusett school board OKs reduced budget

Wachusett school board OKs reduced budget
By Sandy Meindersma
Correspondent

Posted Sep. 17, 2015 at 11:25 PM
Updated Sep 18, 2015 at 6:10 AM

HOLDEN - The Wachusett Regional School Committee set its budget at $82.9 million following the failed override vote in Rutland.

The override vote, which failed 781-679, would have given the school district four towns who had approved the district’s proposed $83.3 million budget. Holden, Princeton and Sterling approved the district’s budget as part of their annual town meetings. Paxton has approved a school assessment figure that would lower the district budget to $81.3 million.

Because the school committee has approved a new budget, the towns of Paxton and Rutland must vote on the new budget by Nov. 1, or it will be deemed approved.

If the district does not have a budget set by Dec. 1, the state commissioner of education will step in and set the budget for the district.

The new budget is $425,000 lower than the district’s most recent budget draft. To get to the $82.9 million figure, salary figures for the proposed new positions (deputy superintendent, three middle school guidance counselors and seven new teachers) have been reduced to reflect the fact that the new staff have not yet been hired.

It took several votes to get to the new budget.

Rutland board member Charles Witkes proposed eliminating the deputy superintendent position from the revised budget; the amendment failed by a vote of 12-9.

Holden member Stacey Jackson proposed keeping the budget at the $83.3 million level.

“This is a race to the bottom,” she said. “If the commissioner comes in, we have already done his job for him.”

“I cannot support that,” Mr. Witkes said. “If you do that, you are absolutely inviting the state to come in.”

Ms. Jackson’s motion failed by a vote of 16-4.

Holden member Ken Mills’ proposal to reduce the budget by an additional $50,000 from the instructional support line item also failed.

The committee’s first vote of the night was a nearly unanimous (19-1) rejection of an $81.7 million budget that would have matched the amount that the town of Rutland had already approved.

“I hope the committee will unanimously reject this,” Robert Imber, vice chairman of the committee, said when he made the motion. “We can’t run a district like this, and the vote would have cost one cup of coffee every week.”

“If we accept this budget, then we will never recover from this,” member Susan Hitchcock said.

Lance Harris, chairman of the school committee, said that he felt it was important that the school committee consider Rutland’s number, even though the town never considered the school district’s budget without any contingencies.