WILBRAHAM — While talks initially reached an impasse over revisions to the regional agreement between Hampden and Wilbraham, the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District School Committee received updates on the agreement and discussed a meeting with both towns’ select boards during its Aug. 21 meeting.
The board began discussing a letter from the Wilbraham Select Board about meeting to discuss the process for planning for the budget and capital projects for the next fiscal year.
School Committee member Mike Tirabassi said he would be happy to meet with the Select Board and Finance Committee about planning for the budget.
“All we can do is try to be as open and transparent as we can and try to remember that they’re our neighbors and work together the best we can to advocate for the kids, but also to advocate for the taxpayers by doing what we can to keep costs under control,” he said.
School Committee member Sean Kennedy said that one of the difficulties of preparing capital expense plans each year is that the prices change when projects are kicked from prior years.
“If we spend the time to update every single quote every year to get it to so it’s ready to go, it’s a lot of energy and a lot of time, so we do try to come up with accuracy. We know where they’re saying ‘OK, let’s do this project,’ then we can sharpen our pencils and fine tune things, but I understand that frustration,” he said.
Kennedy also recommended going to the Select Board’s meeting. Tirabassi also suggested making it a working meeting with a list of items to talk about with the Select Board.
“We should have an agenda of actual items we want to discuss with them, for instance, the bleachers, I know the Wilbraham engineer came by and said they are not ready to fall over, that’s great, but that doesn’t mean that they’re safe,” he said. “I just don’t want it to be a meeting talking about meetings.”
School Committee Chair Michel Boudreau said it was important to be transparent and to work closely with the towns.
“I think it really is important for us to be in more regular conversation and communication, and transparent with the governing bodies in both towns, and determining what we want our process to look like,” she said.
Superintendent John Provost questioned meeting with just the Wilbraham Select Board, and what that would say to Hampden about how close they would be working together on the budget. Tirabassi said it might make sense to meet with both towns.
“It might be helpful to meet altogether now that I think about it, because I’m not sure Hampden shares the same thought that there’s this big problem that Wilbraham has,” he said.
When working on the budget, Boudreau also suggested having more regular meetings with Wilbraham’s Finance Committee to work out any issues with budgeting.
Assistant Superintendent for Finance, Operations and Human Resources Douglas Slaughter said it may be difficult to have the exact details for capital projects in a September meeting.
“The challenge for me, I think, relative to capital expenses for an earlier part of September is to have much detail. I think we can talk in broad terms and … having very solid numbers will be a challenge at that point,” he said. “I think it’s an opportunity to still talk about approach and mechanics of approach, and what’s possible, and what their needs are.”
Select Board member Timothy Collins said he was in favor of meeting and clearing any mistrust with both town select boards, in addition to including HVAC upgrades at Wilbraham Middle School as one of the capital projects to be discussed at the meeting.
“I’m all in favor of bringing the towns together because what I’m hearing is there’s a lot of mistrust between our body and those select boards, or at least our Select Board in Wilbraham, I don’t know what the Hampden people are feeling about it, but there is serious mistrust,” he said. “They think we’re padding our budget. Well, you look at the budget and show me where there’s padding, we have positions for kids with special needs that we haven’t filled.”
Ultimately the board tasked Provost with drafting an agenda with input from Hampden and Wilbraham about meeting with both towns before it is approved by the School Committee.
Regional agreement
After talks halted over revisions to the district’s regional agreement earlier this year, Provost provided an update that regulations the board was originally considering for the regional agreement “are not likely to have a significant impact on our ability to move forward with our proposed restated agreement,” according to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
After Tirabassi motioned to send a certified letter to the Wilbraham Select Board about hosting a fall Town Meeting, Provost said that the biggest remaining issue is how to handle the capital costs of the middle school, which is what led to talks to stall between Hampden and Wilbraham.
“Where I’m in a bit of a holding pattern right now is will they come forward with a proposal that is supported by both towns of ‘this is what we would like the agreement to say with respect to some of the pre-existing capital costs or whether there should be carveouts for some of the costs,’” he said.
Kennedy said he believes that the towns were “at an impasse” over the middle school issue and suggested having “strong numbers” for costs for pre-existing issues at the middle school.
“Let’s all get on the same page and then find out what is the actual number, and from that hopefully we can move on with discussions,” he said. “I still think that that is where the rubber meets the road.”
Provost said that he had conducted a walkthrough of the building with Wilbraham officials and said that they could be amenable to starting with a study about the needs of the middle school.
“One approach on that might be to start by requesting an appropriation for a sum of money to determine what is the best approach to upgrading the system, potentially with the capacity of a later MSBA project to go to a completely different system,” he said.
From a recent meeting with Massachusetts School Building Authority officials, Provost said the district was required to replace the windows and doors before qualifying for any assistance. He explained that this meant that a new HVAC system would be three to four years away with MSBA support. By approving a feasibility study for interim fixes to the existing system, Provost said it would determine if those smaller repairs would be worth it.
Provost also suggested including the feasibility study in the meeting with the towns’ select boards.
The board agreed to send the certified letter to Wilbraham about conducting a Town Meeting.
The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District School Committee next meets on Sept. 11.
