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Dr. David Hopson |
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October 2, 2006 The State Department of Education is in the process of codifying a number of decisions they’ve made over the years into a new set of regulations for regional school districts. While the vast majority of these are considered ‘standard operating procedures’ throughout the state, there are a small number that are unique and not in regular practice. All of these ‘regulations’ are essentially interpretations that are meant to clarify the intent of legislation and make it possible for schools to function within the law. As state law, and therefore adopted regulations, take precedence over local decisions—including our regional school agreement—I thought I’d share those that seem to differ from our regional agreement and standard practice. In terms of admitting and withdrawal of towns into the regional district, the regulations put specific dates on the process but generally concur with our regional agreement. Regarding the adoption of the regional school budget, the process and procedures we currently use would only be affected in two areas. The regulations would allow school committees to include a line item in the budget as a reserve for extraordinary and unanticipated revenues as a replacement for using the Excess and Deficiency Fund (E&D). This means that we would vote money out of E&D into a reserve account on a yearly basis, thereby meeting the standards of appropriations set by the Department of Revenue. The second change is that an alternative assessment, using the regional agreement, could be placed in front of district towns in addition to the state’s minimum contribution assessment numbers. In the past, towns have been able to ask for this ‘alternative’ assessment but this requires a 100% approval of the member towns. After much discussion at a meeting last week between the DOE and regional superintendents, the process for asking for an alternative assessment is being reworked to be more manageable for both districts and towns. The proposed regulations also allow the Commissioner of Education, in consultation with the Commissioner of Revenue, to require local districts to submit their budget for review to ensure that the budget is in balance. We were told that this would be used rarely and is an additional check for certain districts whose budgets are consistently out of balance and end up requiring state intervention. The last major change is in the use of Excess and Deficiency Funds. This has been a hotly debated topic over the last few weeks, as the DOE and DOR propose not allowing this money to be used for emergencies unless the towns approved these expenditures by a two-thirds vote. In our experience, this could have some potentially serious impacts, such as when we used this fund to pay for the mold cleanup in Russell Elementary School the week before school started in 2005. If this provision had been in effect, we would have needed to wait for town approval, the towns would have had the expense of an additional special town meeting, and we would have been forced to wait for the town vote, thereby allowing the mold problem to worsen and increased costs to remedy. We would also have had to either postpone the start of school or move those students to another building. This is another issue that the DOE is taking back for further consideration and additional fact-finding. I don’t know what the final outcome will be given the discussions this past week. The district is proceeding as if there will be no big changes in the operating procedures for regional school districts. If there are changes that will impact the district operations, I will share these with the school committee and the public, and make the appropriate recommendations to ensure the continued efficient operation of the district. ### |
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