DALTON, Mass. — Elected town officials encouraged the Central Berkshire Regional School District to work on reducing its budget and being more open to collaboration with the towns that fund it. 

 

"We want to get ahead of that so you're aware of what we want to have as a town," said Select Board Chair Joseph Diver at Thursday's public hearing on the fiscal 2024 budget. "And I think the other general comment is I heard over the years that the School Committee members serve students and not the residents of the town who you have been elected by. 

 

"I believe that you need to represent the towns that you're elected by and understand the things that we have coming at us as a town." 

 

The regional district is proposing a $30,078,694 operating budget that is up 3.42 percent, or $994,646, from this year's $29,084,048, and a capital budget of $2,110,239, down $51,354 over this year. Together, they total about a 3 percent increase over this year.

 

Dalton, as the largest of the seven communities in the district, is responsible for more than half the operating budget, or 61.72 percent, base on enrollment. Its assessment is projected at $9.1 million, up about $220,738, or 2.48 percent over this year. Its portion of the capital budget is expected to decrease by $22,124 to $1,269,442.

 

The Select Board and Finance Committee, at a joint meeting last week, raised concerns over escalating school costs and the constraints of Proposition 2 1/2 as it tried to address other needed projects such as a new fire station and road maintenance. 

 

"We're going to be faced with a lot of challenges financially over the next couple of years of trying to figure this out," Diver said, noting the town has no control over the school district or Fire District. 

 

He also held out hope that the passage of the so-called Millionaires' Tax passed last year would start bringing revenue into the schools. The 4 percent surcharge on earned income above $1 million is targeted for education and infrastructure. 

 

Dalton Finance Committee Chair William Drosehn echoed Diver's concerns, encouraging the school to consider limiting its annual increases to 2.5 percent and dip into its excess and deficiency fund to relieve taxpayers. 

 

"And I don't want to say fortunately or unfortunately, but as circumstances have presented, the school budgets have become roughly 60 percent of the overall budget of the towns," he said. "That 3 1/2 percent doesn't happen just this year, that 3 1/2 percent compounds to the next year — and then to the next year and to the next year, because we keep adding on to it. ...

 

"So living within the guise of Proposition 2 1/2 becomes rather difficult for the town side of this equation."

 

Town of Washington Select Board Chair Ken Lew said he had a lot of respect for the challenges being faced by the school district and its staff and believed the administration was taking "great care" to be aware of the impact of the assessments. 

 

But, he said, "it does feel often that these assessments are handed as a fait accompli."

 

"We have to basically rein in our funding of our other responsibilities," Lew said. "We've had to basically underfund our other responsibilities, primarily highway and such, over time."

 

The seven-town advisory board should be brought in earlier in the process, he said, for greater collaboration. 

 

The school district's Director of Finance Gregory Boino said he had suggested at the last advisory board meeting to add a "tickler" to calendar to notify the towns that it's budget season. 

 

Two and half percent is always the goal, he said, but with contractual lines it "tough to get there."

 

Officials said they had been rebuffed when they had reached out to the administration to set up a seven-town meeting. Superintendent Leslie Blake-Davis said the district didn't have good figures at the time and School Committee Chair Richard Peters said it's "not a mystery" of when the committee meets.

 

After some back and forth between town and school officials, they all agreed that open lines of communication were important for the process and to begin earlier next year. 

 

Peters pointed out that the building costs for the new Wahconah Regional High School will be moving out of the operational budget next year and that some towns have already voted to exclude the annual payment from Proposition 2 1/2.

 

"Don't think that this committee and the administration aren't aware of the impact on taxpayers, that comes up in Finance Committee, we have talked about that and that has affected part of the numbers that you see here now," he said. "I'm certain that will be addressed again but will never be as low as you would like, but I'm certain that that will be addressed."