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 1^st 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.

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.

Thanks to a very smart and diligent Sterling Finance Committee member the truth about the WRSD Committee’s Budget Assessment practices, unfairly, unethically, and unlawfully favoring Holden and Rutland property taxpayers to the extreme disfavor and prejudice of Sterling’s property taxpayers, apparently implemented for years, have been revealed. The Amended Wachusett Regional School District 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” (emphasis added).

Mass.Gen.Laws Ch. 70, Section 6, LAST SENTENCE, provides:

“The district may choose to spend additional amounts; provided, however, that such decisions shall be made and such amounts charged to members according to the district’s regional agreement”(emphasis added).

In law “costs” and “charges” have the same meaning. It is time for Sterling Town Counsel to address the WRSD Committee’s unfair, unethical, and unlawful budget assessment practices in order to protect Sterling property taxpayers from now forward.

The following graphs and quoted commentary are courtesy of that astute Sterling Finance Committee member himself:

“As noted, the graphs below…convey the idea more clearly.  Hovering over any bar segment will display the assessment value breakdown per student in $K.  The width of each town section in the graph is representative of each towns’ population… Again, none of this is challenging the State imposed MRC [minimum required contribution], this is only about the disparity in the ‘above minimum contribution’ assessments by the district (the only differences [disparities] in these charts are the gray bars at the top).

The first graph shows the cost per student as it is currently proposed by WRSD, and clearly displays the unfair treatment that Sterling receives on a cost per student basis.  Each child in the district receives the same education[.] Sterling (the highest per child charge) [students] do[] not receive a better education than Rutland (the lowest per child charge) [students].

The second graph shows what the cost per student should be according to the district agreement.  Being a district where each child gets the same, equal education, the charge per student should be equal.”

THIS YEAR THE WRSD IS ATTEMPTING TO HOSE STERLING TAXPAYERS, UNFAIRLY AND DISPROPORTIONATELY, CLOSE TO $2 MILLION, A SUM THAT SHOULD BE FOOTED BY HOLDEN AND RUTLAND TAXPAYERS. THIS IS AN OUTRAGE. REMEMBER THAT AT THE MAY 2024 ANNUAL TOWN MEETING WHEN THE WRSD BUDGET REQUEST COMES UP FOR A VOTE.

J.G.