It took two (2) very pointed emailed demands from me, months apart, before MassDESE released the WRSD’s 2024-2025 total student enrollment numbers. Now we know why. The WRSD student population has fallen yet again, from a peak of 7493 in FY 2010-2011 to 6557 this academic year–
That’s down from 6676 in just the past year. It’s a 936–12.5%– drop since FY 2010. The WRSD’s total student enrollment is cratering. Yeah, my heart bleeds.
BUT, as you know, the WRSD Superintendent and WRSD Committee are virtue-signaling cowards who refuse to layoff/fire employees despite being authorized by statute to do so when the student population drops. SEE
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXII/Chapter71/section42
They are running a jobs program for drones unable to hack it in ‘the dreaded private sector’–at our expense. The WRSD payroll exceeds 1000 persons. It is bloated. Despite this continuing student enrollment free-fall the WRSD budget has BALLOONED from $81.3 million in FY 2015 to $121.9 million for THIS Fiscal Year, or $40.6 million in just 10 years.
The WRSD IS ABSOLUTELY OUT OF CONTROL. I am informed that the WRSD Superintendent and WRSD Committee, extortionists all, insist on yet another annual budget increase of 4.5% for the Fiscal Year 2025-2026. Meanwhile, Social Security recipients got a 2.5% increase based on the annual inflation rate. THESE WRSD ANNUAL BUDGET INCREASES ARE OUTRAGEOUS AND COMPOUNDING. DISTRICT PROPERTY TAXPAYERS ARE GETTING SCREWED.
Meanwhile, in response, we are not even getting mush from the wimps, meaning Sterling’s Select Board. Instead, we get Omerta—the code of silence. They’re too busy pandering for votes from WRSD vested interest blocs in town—mommies, daddies, unionized school teachers, and members of other WRSD collective bargaining groups—to give a rat’s ass about property taxpayers at large, particularly those who are retired and on fixed incomes.
They, the WRSD Superintendent, the WRSD Committee, and the Sterling Select Board are shameless and contemptible.
Your correspondent has drafted TWO (2) Sterling Voters’ Petitions for 2025 Sterling Annual Town Meeting Warrant Articles in accordance with Mass.Gen.Laws Ch. 39, Sec. 10 to confront the WRSD Superintendent, the WRSD Committee, and the pandering, groveling Sterling Select Board. They are out for editorial review by some concerned Sterling voters. I hope to have them signed by multiple Sterling voters and filed with the Select Board by 11 February 2025. More on them later….
Stay tuned.
J.G.
STERLING, MASSACHUSETTS, OVERWATCH 