Good news, bad news for BHRSD

November 25, 2013
By David Scribner

Hard as it may be for some to believe, the Berkshire Hills Regional School District is about to save taxpayers money. A modest amount to be sure – only $1.7 million – a drop in the bucket compared to the $56 million Monument Mountain High School renovation school officials had hoped the district would approve – but still, $1.7 million is $1.7 million

Sharon Harrison, the district’s business manager, informed the School Committee last week that refinancing district’s indebtedness would decrease repayments by $1.7 million, or 9.8 percent of the amount remaining for the construction of Muddy Brook Regional Elementary School and Monument Valley Regional Middle School.

The savings come from a reduction in the debt’s interest rate from 4.07 percent to 2.06 percent. The School Committee unanimously adopted the refinancing plan.

“We did really well,” Harrison noted, before the November 21 School Committee meeting in the Middle School library.

“This will reduce our capital budget by that amount,” she explained. “In fact, the repayment of that debt is really the only thing in our capital budget.”

In the near term, the savings will result in a $99,000 adjustment in the spring assessment to the three member towns.

In the long term, the lower interest rates will mean a savings of $176,000 per year to the district, a portion of which will have to be shared with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) that funded a percentage of the construction.

“Every year we manage to find a few rabbits to pull out of the hat,” Dillon commented.

What a contrast to the meeting two weeks ago when the School Committee faced a hostile audience as it tried to find a way to rescusitate the $56 million Monument Mountain Regional High School renovation project that voters in Great Barrington had rejected by a nearly 2 to 1 margin, in both the balloting on the renovation itself as well as the necessary exclusion of the project’s cost from the requirements of Proposition 21/2.

District-wide voters had approved the expenditure, and Stockbridge and West Stockbridge had endorsed the Proposition 21/2 override. Great Barrington’s refusal to approve the override seemingly killed the renovation, at least in its current configuration.

The School Committee, however, is not taking no for an answer, and has requested the MSBA to allow the renovation proposal – perhaps in a revised form – to come before the May 5 Annual Town Meeting in Great Barrington, in order to preserve the 48 percent reimbursement the state has offered.

The district will receive the MSBA’s verdict within the next two weeks, Dillon told the committee last week.

“Are we not going to have a post mortem on the vote?” inquired Great Barrington committee member Frederick Clark. “A debriefing, at least, so that we can talk about where we might go with this? Don’t we need to talk about moving ahead, regardless of what the state says?”

Dillon said that while no dates had yet been set for a public meeting to discuss Great Barrington’s resounding rejection of the renovation proposal and how the district will absorb the costs of undertaking essential repairs to the 50-year-old high school facility, there would be meetings scheduled during December.