By PATRICK ADRIAN
[email protected]
LANGDON — Differences arose among members of the Fall Mountain Withdrawal Study Committee meeting about how the school administrative unit (SAU) will need to operate should Charlestown withdraw from the district. With Charlestown separate, the SAU may need to hire additional staff.
On Wednesday, Finance Subcommittee Chair Lucien “Lou” Beam of Langdon, presented an initial rough draft of a projected Charlestown school budget in fiscal years 2020 and 2021 should Charlestown become its own district. According to Beam, Fall Mountain Chief Financial Officer Jim Fenn drafted the budget based on the actual 2019-2020 budget, historical data, and future assumptions, though Beam estimated the numbers to be “80% accurate.”
This draft only included costs, not revenues, Beam said. Fenn will present a second draft to the subcommittee at its next meeting, and the projected costs will be considerably less once revenues are factored in.
In addition, while the finance subcommittee found Fenn’s initial numbers “fair and reasonable,” Beam said the Charlestown School Research Committee, which reviews Charlestown’s side of the withdrawal plan, will need to see the budget and make its own recommendations.
Disagreement arose, however, over the subject of Charlestown’s shared costs for the SAU budget. Charlestown’s plan includes only withdrawing from the school district, not from the SAU, which provides shared administrative costs like a superintendent, financial director, and special education director.
Committee Chair Albert St. Pierre of Charlestown took issue with the projected SAU budget adding three new hires to support the office of the superintendent and special education team, and said that Charlestown’s committee would not want those positions.
“We’re not going to buy that,” St. Pierre. “We’re going to do different things. So we’re going to pull our committee together, go through the budget and make decisions. So if you’re adding three positions for the SAU, we can’t do that.”
Other members immediately said that may not be an option.
“If we’re going to support having a separate district instead of one district, there’s going to need to be a larger staff at the central office in order to support that,” member Sarah Vogel of Acworth said. “I understand that is something the withdrawal committee isn’t going to necessarily like, but that’s a reality.”
Member Mary Henry of Langdon said that compliances for schools make the financial and regulatory paperwork much more complex than what town selectmen undertake, and breaking one district into two means substantially more work.
Vogel expressed concern that St. Pierre appeared to resist listening to members who disagree with him.
“If we’re going to move forward there’s a real necessity that everyone stay open to listening to what the necessities are and all the different sides,” Vogel said.
Members agreed that there will be many parameters within the SAU budget where Charlestown might elect to contract their own services, such as for groundskeeping. Henry said that there are certain educational and administrative services that have to remain in place. Currently she did not have that list but said the committee needs to study what those parameters are.
“It’s going to be really important for the two committees to work together to determine at the end of the day what is reasonable and what is not,” Beam said.
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.