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JAY – Selectmen scheduled a special meeting Monday, after legal counsel informed the Jay School Department that funding raised to cover a consolidation penalty was already part of the department’s funding and no town meeting vote would be required to utilize it.
Selectman Chair Stephen McCourt said he wanted to hold the meeting so comments on the issue could be heard.
“Everyone knows what the intent of the money was,” he said, “to pay to penalty. I don’t see how the voters voted to pay a different penalty.”
On Feb. 1, Jay School Department Superintendent Robert Wall and board members addressed selectmen at their meeting, informing them that the Department of Education had ordered both a curtailment, or state subsidy reduction, and had increased the amount of local funding required to leverage that subsidy. The department therefore faced a $484,389 shortfall in the current fiscal year, which ends on July 1, 2010.
Wall proposed utilizing $216,000 in funds raised in 2009, which had been earmarked to cover an anticipated consolidation penalty. After voters rejected a merger of the local department with SAD 36 in January 2009, the town expected to face the $216,000 subsidy penalty in the fiscal year of 2009-2010. Selectmen approved releasing $216,000 from undesignated revenue funds to the school department in March 2009, in an effort to lessen the impact of the subsidy losses.
However, the Legislature passed a law delaying consolidation penalties for one year. Wall suggested using the funds, which he noted had been raised by the voters to lessen the impact of a state funding reduction, to offset the $484,000 shortfall. He believes the department could absorb the remaining $268,398 in a subsidy reduction without sacrificing positions.
“Without the $216,000,” Wall said at the time, “we’re probably going to have to look at personnel.”
Selectmen were unwilling to release the funds, saying that residents had voted to cover a specific penalty. Instead, Town Manager Ruth Cushman was instructed to begin setting up a special town meeting, where residents would be asked if they wanted the funds applied to the district’s shortfall.
However, Wall learned through the department’s attorney that such a meeting was unnecessary. The $216,000 had already been added into the department’s revenue; had the town wanted to alter that fact they would have had to hold a special town meeting 15 days after the March budget vote. The article which voters approved did not specifically set the amount of shortfall to be covered, and there was no legal reason the department would need additional meetings or votes.
Monday, McCourt asked Wall if he believed the department could sustain itself with the $216,000 until the end of the year, without cutting positions.
“We feel we can make it through the year, yes,” Wall said, adding that all subsidy losses were based off of estimates.
“We have to run a school system,” he noted.
Selectman Tom Goding and Selectman Amy Pineau both said that they hoped the school board and department realized that tough economic decisions would need to be made in regards to cuts.
“Compared to next year, what you’ve guys done is going to look like nothing,” Goding said, referring to the estimated $1.4 million subsidy reduction anticipated in the next fiscal year. “But it’s going to have to be done.”
“We’ll do our best to make it through the rest of the year, and next year,” Wall said. “We were, and we are, appreciative of the support of the town.”
Selectmen advanced no motion, instead letting the delicate budgetary decisions rest in the hands of the school board.
“It’s pretty cut and dried,” McCourt said. “It’s up to the people on the school board.”
The school board will be holding a meeting on the budget Thursday, Feb. 11, at 6 p.m. at Jay High School’s library. Selectmen also reminded residents that the special town meeting, to fill the vacant selectman’s seat, was scheduled for Feb. 16 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the town office.
