Schools Seek Finance Help

Leaders of Island School Districts Seek Reassurance from Towns that
State Local Aid Funds Will Support Education

By CHRIS BURRELL

With annual town meeting season only days away, school leaders this
week pressured Island selectmen and town financial teams to back amended
school budgets that would earmark state funds for educational spending
and avert the need to lay off teachers for next year.

The scrambling for political support, which began Monday morning and
continued through late Wednesday night, was spurred by Gov. Mitt
Romney's recommended budget for next year, proposing deep cuts in
aid for schools and a massive overhaul in the way local aid is
distributed.

Put simply, state funds that used to go directly to the
Island's two regional school districts - the Martha's
Vineyard Regional High School and the Up Island Regional School District
- would now go straight to the towns if the governor gets his way.

Vineyard school leaders from the two districts now want guarantees
that these state funds will come back to their budgets, and they will
ask voters at town meeting in the next two weeks to support that action.

Even though state legislators will take a crack at crafting a budget
later this spring and chart their own course for digging out of the
state's ever-deepening fiscal hole, Governor Romney's
recommendation remains for now the only guidepost for schools and towns
as they try to predict just how much state aid they can factor into
their annual spending plans.

The pressure to answer those questions is magnified by deadlines,
the first of which is town meetings. All six Vineyard towns are poised
to decide their annual budgets by the end of next month. But the schools
are also facing a May 15 deadline, when principals are contractually
required to notify any teachers who might be laid off.

This week, the friction came from Tisbury where officials balked at
the school's bid to claim the state money, saying that in the
climate of state revenue shortfalls that could exceed $2 billion, they
can't count on the governor producing the local aid promised in
his budget.

In Edgartown, selectman Arthur Smadbeck staked out the opposite
view, arguing that the governor's latest budget plan poses nothing
more serious than "an accounting situation," easily resolved
by simply shifting state money from town coffers to school budgets.

But whether simple or complex, school principals this week sounded
an alarm, saying that if town meeting voters don't back the
amendments to deposit those funds back in their accounts, they will be
forced to slash their budgets, laying off teachers and cutting whole
programs from athletics to art and music.

"We are lobbying to recoup that money and give it back to the
schools," Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. Kriner Cash told a
meeting of the All-Island Selectmen Wednesday night in the regional high
school library.

More than 70 people, including teachers, parents and even students,
turned out for the meeting which had been advertised on a sign in front
of the high school for most of the last two weeks with three words:
"Save Our Schools."

Technically speaking, saving the schools will require voters to
approve increased assessments to fund the two regional school budgets.
Leaders at the regional high school are looking for $1.6 million. In the
up-Island school district, that figure is roughly $300,000.

Mr. Cash told selectmen this week that amending the school budgets
to increase the assessments by those amounts should not pose a burden to
the towns under Governor Romney's budget.

That's because the governor has created a new category of
local aid called "transitional mitigation aid," which would
total more than $2.2 million for all the Island towns next year.

Despite the assurances, Tisbury officials blasted the plan.
Selectman Thomas Pachico called on high school committee members to
retool their budget and find more savings.

"There seems to be a lot of fat in the budget," he said,
pointing to administrators earning nearly $100,000 a year and enjoying
raises of up to 10 per cent.

Tisbury finance director Timothy McLean later told selectmen,
"If we commit to using the mitigation aid and it doesn't
come, the town will have to cut $450,000 from its own budget."

Tisbury's defiance failed to create any groundswell among
other Island towns. On the contrary, selectmen from Edgartown and
Chilmark both threw considerable support behind the schools and easing
their plight.

"We need to get the money back to the school aid sheet,"
said Mr. Smadbeck.

"I echo the same sentiments from Chilmark," said that
town's selectman, Warren Doty, who went on to criticize Governor
Romney's move to cut educational funding. "This is billions
for bombs and pennies for schools," he added, earning a round of
applause.

Selectmen from Oak Bluffs and West Tisbury said they wanted to help
the schools but were waiting on advice from their town counsel before
committing to the request.

Meanwhile, Cape and Islands Sen. Robert O'Leary, who has been
invited to the next meeting of the All-Island Selectmen in April, told
the Gazette yesterday that deeper cuts are coming.

"What you're going to be looking at will be
significant," he said. "It might leave the schools worse off
than in the Romney budget."