My copy of Sterling’s useless fluff-piece, The Sterling Meetinghouse News, arrived in today’s mail and, lo and behold, on the last page appeared the article entitled “Sterling Town Meeting Draws Large Turnout and Advances Key Initiatives,” authored by the Sterling Finance Committee. Lest you forget, the Sterling Finance Committee, collectively, is supposed to be the Town’s fiscal watchdog. Problem is, its members are appointed by the useless, vapid, gutless, irresponsible, gladhander media hounds known as the Sterling Select Board.
Since 2012 a grand total of TWO Sterling Finance Committee Chairs, Larry Pape and George Handy, have displayed the acuity, guts, and resolve to lead Sterling’s Finance Committee, at the 2012 and 2024 Sterling Annual Town Meetings, respectively, to recommend AGAINST passage of the Wachusett Regional School District’s usual exorbitant and outrageous budget requests. Their recommendations were heeded and Sterling Annual Town Meeting voters rejected the WRSD’s requested Sterling school budget appropriations shares at those two Annual Town Meetings. BUT, to the useless, vapid, gutless, irresponsible, gladhander media hounds known as the Sterling Select Board, making recommendations against the WRSD’s perennially out-of-control, outrageous budget requests is politically incorrect and a political lability. SO in 2012 the useless, vapid, gutless, irresponsible, gladhander media hounds known as the Sterling Select Board voted NOT to re-appoint Larry Pape to the Finance Committee and in 2024 did likewise with George Handy.
The result? Lessons learned. The Sterling Finance Committee is not a fiscal watchdog protecting Sterling’s property taxpayers, rather it is a collection of Select Board lapdogs of the Shih Tzu variety—
I Shih Tzu not!
So let’s get back to the above-referenced Finance Committee article, shall we?! I start with “On the education front…the Wachusett Regional School District… budget[ ] [was] approved. The WRSD budget reflects a $7 million increase district-wide, enabling important improvements in early education, including the hiring of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math) teachers and interventionists across the district elementary schools. Once again, WRSD was placed in ‘hold harmless’ status by the state—a designation that freezes the district’s Chapter 70 aid close to prior year levels….”
That’s right Sterling Finance Committee ASSCLOWNS—UNLIKE YOU, the state acknowledges that since Fiscal Year 2010 WRSD total student enrollment has dropped by 936, from 7493 to 6557, or 12.5%, MEANING THAT UNDER MASS. GEN. LAWS CHAPTER 71, SECTION 42 THE WRSD SUPERINTENDENT SHOULD BE IMPLEMENTING CORRESPONDING “REDUCTIONS IN FORCE,” NOT ADDING TO THE WRSD’S BLOATED PAYROLL THAT TOTALLED 1040 DURING THIS FISCAL YEAR.
The WRSD now has 1 employee for every 6.3 students and the student-teacher ratio is down to 14:1.
While WRSD student enrollment has been falling like a stone, the WRSD budget has increased from $81.3 million in FY 2015-2016 to $129.2 million for FY 2025-2026—a $48 million increase, and $7 million over last year’s WRSD budget.
Here is the key language in Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 71, Section 42—
“Nothing in this section or section 41 shall affect the right of a superintendent to lay off teachers pursuant to reductions in force or reorganization resulting from declining enrollment or other budgetary reasons.”
BUT, BUT, BUT THE WRSD JUST HAD TO HIRE 17 NEW “STEAM” TEACHERS AND SOME “INTERVENTIONISTS” BECAUSE THE WRSD COMMITTTEE IS SO INCOMPETENT THAT IT OMITTED PHONICS FROM THE WRSD CURRICULUM FOR YEARS SO THAT READING LEVELS ARE 3 FULL GRADES BELOW WHAT THEY SHOULD BE. OTHER PERFORMANCE LEVELS ARE BELOW GRADE LEVEL TOO.
Question for the Sterling Finance Committee— HOW DOES WRSD COLLECTIVE BARGAINING UNIT ASS TASTE???
MEMO to the Sterling Finance Committee: If we want to watch WRSD cheerleaders we can do that at football and basketball games. We don’t want to see you doing it at the Sterling Annual Town Meeting Finance Committee table at taxpayer expense.
Moving on, this also appeared in that Finance Committee article: “Two significant public works projects also gained approval. First, an $800,000 borrowing authorization for long-needed drainage improvements on Swett Hill Road passed at both the Town Meeting and subsequent debt exclusion [ Proposition 2 ½ tax limit override] ballot… The second project authorizes $500,000 for initial design work and project management…[for] a potential new …[DPW] facility…[whose] associated debt exclusion [Proposition 2 ½ tax limit override] did not pass at the ballot….”
First off, there is no Swett Hill Road drainage or erosion problem. At the Annual Town Meeting Sterling D.P.W. reps showed NO photographs depicting ANY damage to Swett Hill Road. And if there were, it could be rectified easily by putting a larger diameter culvert under the roadbed. THE REAL ISSUE, AS DEPICTED IN THE D.P.W. PHOTOGRAPHS, IS THE INTERMITTENT STREAM THAT RUNS DOWNHILL AND CARRIES SAND AND SILT THROUGH THE SHOLAN PARK/TOWN BEACH PROPERTY DURING HIGH-RUNOFF/SNOWMELT PERIODS.
That’s what happens when an intermittent stream runs through your property into a pond or lake. Too effing bad!
Yeah, so the Finance Committee recommended passage of that $800,000 misrepresented boondoggle— Warrant Article 26—at the Annual Town Meeting. So much for truth in advertising and spending. That was a win for the ‘East Waushacum Lake Association,’ not for Sterling Property taxpayers. Barbara Roberti, Chair of the Sterling Conservation Commission, just happens to live on East Waushacum Lake. Quelle surprise!!!
And yeah, the Sterling Finance Committee recommended passage of Warrant Article 25, to the tune of $500,000, for the Sterling D.P.W.’s proposed ‘Garage Mahal’ boondoggle. The Sterling Finance Committee wants Sterling D.P.W. trucks to live large, very large, in luxury, dontcha know. At the Annual Town Meeting the Sterling D.P.W. reps admitted that they never checked out ANY of the MANY steel buildings all along Pratt Junction Road and Chocksett Road seeking a cheaper alternative to the sought-after ‘Garage Mahal’ that Mr. Gauthier of the Finance Committee estimated would cost $33 million and drive up Sterling property tax rates by 11% during the multi-year life of the borrowing bond that would be required. THANK GOD STERLING TAXPAYERS WERE SMART ENOUGH TO VOTE DOWN ARTICLE 25’s PROPOSED PROPOSITION 2 ½ OVERRIDE, NOTWITHSTANDING THE UTTER GUTLESS STUPIDITY DISPLAYED BY THE STERLING FINANCE COMMITTEE.
ALAS, people, TAKE HEART! The Finance Committee also wrote that its recommended local option meals tax and local option room tax increases passed at the Annual Town Meeting “with the Massachusetts DOR projecting they could generate $80,000 annually.”
SO, FOLKS, THE STERLING FINANCE COMMITTEE IS HAPPY TO RECOMMEND STIFFING STERLING TAXPAYERS BY $MILLIONS, BUT THEN PATS ITSELF ON THE BACK FOR GETTING LOCAL MEALS AND ROOM TAXES INCREASED MARGINALLY CONSTITUTING AN $80,000 FINGER STUCK INTO THE FLOODED SPENDING DIKE. AND THEY HAVE THE UTTER TEMERITY TO CALL THE RESULT “IMPACTFUL.”
“IMPACTFUL” MY ASS.
THE STERLING FINANCE COMMITTEE ARE DELUSIONAL ASSCLOWNS.
THE PROPOSITION 2 ½ OVERRIDE TIME-BOMB WAS KICKED DOWN THE ROAD TO NEXT YEAR.
IT’S COMING AND I SHIH TZU NOT.
J.G.
STERLING, MASSACHUSETTS, OVERWATCH 