For DECADES, up through the 2018 Sterling Annual Town Meeting, the proposed next-fiscal-year WRSD Budget requests were presented in TWO Warrant Articles, the first Article for the state-required net minimum contribution from the Town of Sterling, in accordance with Mass.Gen.Laws Ch. 70, Sections 3 and 6–
General Law – Part I, Title XII, Chapter 70, Section 3 (malegislature.gov)
General Law – Part I, Title XII, Chapter 70, Section 6 (malegislature.gov) —
and the second Article for amounts above that state-required net minimum.
At the 2010 Sterling Annual Town Meeting voters actually REJECTED the WRSD’s FY 2011 budget request for the amount above required net minimum after then-Finance Committee Chair Larry Pape expounded upon the WRSD’s budget bloat and unaccountability. Not surprisingly, the Sterling Select Board, INVERTEBRATES THEN AS THEY ARE NOW, refused to re-appoint Larry Pape when his term on the Finance Committee expired in 2012.
Sterling voters, all those decades through the 2018 Annual Town Meeting, had no difficulty understanding the WRSD two-Article Budget request format and the reasons for it.
THIS YEAR, to its credit, the Sterling Finance Committee– appointed by the Sterling Select Board– attempted to restore that WRSD budget request two-Article Annual Town Meeting format. That two-Article format was ACTUALLY INCLUDED IN THE DRAFT 2024 Annual Town Meeting Warrant reviewed by the Select Board during its 27 March 2024 Meeting.
At that Select Board meeting Linda Woodland, dishonest shill/WRSD Committee member from Sterling, blew more smoke than a U.S. Navy destroyer smokescreen generator about the WRSD budgeting process and what it entailed. The utterly CRAVEN, INVERTEBRATE, PANDERING-FOR-VOTES Sterling Select Board, led off by Kirsten Newman, bought into Woodland’s BULLSHIT, pulled the rug out from under its own appointed Sterling Finance Committee, and TANKED the two-Article approach recommended by the Finance Committee after much hard work and study on its part. They’re all soft as rotten grapes. WATCH the disgusting and disgraceful charade beginning at 1 hour, 13 minutes, and ten seconds (1:13:10) and extending to 1:26:37–
Stream Video – Town Hall Streams
There is now only the one WRSD budget Article as requested by Woodland, Article 2—
2024_atm_final-combined.pdf (sterling-ma.gov)
NOTE TO SELECT BOARD MEMBERS CRANSON, SMITH, AND NEWMAN– Try going to Amazon and buying spines online.
SEE, HOWEVER, WARRANT ARTICLE 29, REQUESTED BY VOTERS’ PETITION, THAT WOULD LIMIT THE WRSD’S FY 2025 APPROPRIATION TO ONLY THE STATE-REQUIRED NET MINIMUM CONTRIBUTION.
Of course, the GUTLESS, CRAVEN, PANDERING-FOR-VOTES Select Board put Article 29 LAST on the Warrant, thereby attempting to render it moot.
Your correspondent will make a Motion to advance it for discussion and vote immediately after the vote on Article 1. I will need a ‘Second’ to support that Motion.
It is time to put a stop to the WRSD’s dishonesty, waste, and abuse of Sterling’s taxpayers. The WRSD’s total student enrollment dropped a full ten per cent (10%), the equivalent of FIFTY (50) empty classrooms, between FY 2015 and now, while the feckless, cowardly, out-of-control WRSD Committee and Administration ADDED employees rather implementing personnel cuts corresponding to that student enrollment drop as they were authorized to do according to Mass.Gen.Laws Ch. 71, Section 42–
General Law – Part I, Title XII, Chapter 71, Section 42 (malegislature.gov)
You can check out the WRSD’s bloated payroll roster– about 1 employee for every 6.5 to 6.7 students –HERE:
WRSD Staff Directory (google.com)
Pay special attention to “Central Office” and “District Wide” duplications and redundancy. Yeah, right, we need them as much as we all need additional bodily orifices.
The WRSD was founded in 1955 and it took SIXTY (60) years– to FY 2015– for it to reach a total budget of $85 million. In just ten (10) years WRSD budgets have BALLOONED from $85 million to the $121.9 million requested for FY 2025. That is absolutely disgusting abuse and exploitation of ALL district taxpayers and it is time for a taxpayer rebellion.
J.G.
STERLING, MASSACHUSETTS, OVERWATCH 