As you know, the Sterling Finance Committee stuck up for all Sterling taxpayers earlier this Spring by proposing TWO (2) WRSD 2024 Annual Town Meeting Warrant Articles, as to the WRSD’s EXORBITANT AND OUTRAGEOUS FY 2025 BUDGET PROPOSAL, in accordance with the WRSD budget 2-Article practice in place for DECADES up through the 2018 Sterling Annual Town Meeting. The Finance Committee’s first proposed WRSD budget Article covered Sterling’s state-required/state-established ‘minimum net contribution’ toward the WRSD’s FY 2025 budget. The Finance Committee’s SECOND proposed WRSD budget Article recognized that Sterling taxpayers, IN VIOLATION OF THE “AMENDED WRSD AGREEMENT,” Section 4, now in effect among the 5 Towns, are paying the HIGHEST cost per student enrolled than taxpayers in the other 4 Towns.
The AMENDED WRSD AGREEMENT, Section 4, “METHOD OF APPORTIONING COSTS OF THE DISTRICT,” provides:
“Payment of all costs shall be apportioned and assessed to each Member Town based upon the prior October 1st student enrollment percentage of each Member Town and the requirements of Massachusetts General Laws.”
The Finance Committee’s SECOND proposed WRSD FY 2025 budget Article, as drafted, cut down the amount to be appropriated for the WRSD’s “excess costs” in alignment with that Section 4 AND, as it turns out, the REAL inflation rate of 3.5%, NOT the 17% GOUGING RATE SOUGHT BY THE WRSD.
Both of the Finance Committee’s proposed FY 2025 WRSD budget Articles made it into the Town of Sterling’s DRAFT 2024 ANNUAL TOWN MEETING WARRANT.
HOWEVER, the spineless WRSD lackeys constituting the Sterling Select Board, at their 27 March 2024 Meeting, HOSED the Finance Committee on their way to HOSING ALL STERLING TAXPAYERS by DELETING from the DRAFT WARRANT the Finance Committee’s proposed second WRSD budget Article and inserting in the FINAL 2024 ANNUAL TOWN MEETING WARRANT– 2024_atm_final-combined.pdf (sterling-ma.gov) — Article 2 that would be a complete sellout to the out-of-control WRSD.
Pay particular attention to the spineless Sterling Select Board WRSD lackeys from 1 hour, 13 minutes, 10 seconds to 1:26:37– Stream Video – Town Hall Streams
Later in that same meeting the spineless Sterling Select Board voted to relegate the Voters’ Petitioned Warrant Article, dealing with the WRSD’s outrageous FY 2025 budget request, to the end of the Warrant as Article 29, doing their utmost to tank it and render it moot.
SO, your correspondent, as the ‘Point of Contact’ for Warrant Article 29, wrote a letter to each Finance Committee member promising to make a Motion at the ATM to take Article 29 out of order and consider it immediately after the vote on Article 1, promising also to make a Motion to Amend Article 29 in alignment with the Finance Committee’s WRSD budget stance, thereby giving Article 29, if so amended, a chance of passage.
Below is that letter reproduced (apologies for spacing problems):
P.O. Box 1149
Sterling, MA 01564-1149
19 April 2024
Finance Committee
Town of Sterling
RE: 2024 Annual Town Meeting Warrant Article 29 Proposal
Dear Sterling Finance Committee Members,
I am the ‘Point of Contact’ (POC) for Article 29 on the ATM Warrant. I had to file my contact info sheet together with the Voters’ Petitions for that Article. That sheet is a public record now. SO, that means ANYONE can telephone or email me about it.
I propose the following steps in order to counteract the Select Board–
1. I will make a Motion at the ATM to take out of order and consider Article 29 IMMEDIATELY AFTER the vote on Article 1. A person has already agreed to SECOND that Motion. ANY VOTER can second that Motion.
2. I promise the Finance Committee and everyone else that I WILL AGREE TO A MOTION TO AMEND AND ELIMINATE FROM ARTICLE 29 THE FOLLOWING LANGUAGE– “and not one penny more” and substitute in its place “and additionally, a discretionary contribution not to exceed 3.5%, or $2,630,193, representing Sterling’s share of the WRSD’s total Fiscal Year 2025 requested excess costs, as apportioned to the Town of Sterling based upon the October 1, 2023 WRSD student enrollment percentage of each Member Town, all in accordance with Section 4 of the Amended Wachusett Regional School District Agreement now in effect” — if it is advanced by vote of those present at the ATM, and will so say at the ATM.
NOTE: The Finance Committee should OUT LOUD voice support for those moves at the ATM.
3. If Article 29 is advanced and so amended THEN we will, in essence, be back to what the Finance Committee proposed in its two DRAFT Warrant Articles approach subverted by the Select Board during the Select Board’s 27 March 2024 meeting.
I thank you for your consideration.
Best Regards,
Jim Gettens
The Sterling Finance Committee, during its 23 April 2024 meeting, voted to ADOPT that approach AND, if that approach fails, to make a Motion of its own to Amend present Warrant Article 2 in an effort to achieve the same result.
Watch the first hour or so of the Finance Committee’s 23 April 2024 meeting—
Stream Video – Town Hall Streams
SO, Sterling Annual Town Meeting voters will have two (2) bites at the apple, if needed, to cut down the WRSD’s outrageous FY 2025 budget request.
COME ON OUT TO THE 6 MAY 2024 STERLING ANNUAL TOWN MEETING AND VOTE TO PROTECT YOUR WALLET.
J.G.
STERLING, MASSACHUSETTS, OVERWATCH 