Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect a clarification of Lincoln’s Minuteman spending in 2015-16.
By Alice Waugh
Area officials have hammered out a newly revised Minuteman High School regional agreement by stripping out the contentious “host community” compensation issue and making it the subject of a separate agreement between the town and the Minuteman school district—but both deals must still be approved by the Minuteman School Committee (MSC).
The proposed intermunicipal agreement (IMA), which was negotiated primarily by Lincoln Selectman Peter Braun and Arlington Selectman Dan Dunn after a district selectmen’s summit on December 2 , would be a two-party agreement between the MSC and the Lincoln Board of Selectmen. It would require the district to pay the Lincoln $138,000 a year (rising annually with inflation) as compensation for hosting a new Minuteman school building on Lincoln land adjacent to the current building in Lexington.
Braun and others in Lincoln have not always seen eye to eye with their Arlington counterparts on the Minuteman issue. At the December 7 Lincoln Board of Selectmen meeting, Braun rebutted a claim that Lincoln was using “extortion” in the negotiations by saying that the same word could be applied to Arlington. That town, which has the largest number of students at Minuteman, stands to benefit by at least $200,000 a year under the new agreement, whereas Lincoln’s costs will go up.
However, on December 15, he said Dunn was “a good guy… we’ve had a meeting of the minds in terms of understanding each other’s positions. We’ve had a good exchange of ideas. It’s been tough business-level bargaining and hearing each other out.”
Lincoln felt the town was not being adequately compensated for increased costs to taxpayers for the new building and for added public safety protection. Host community compensation was originally part of the revised regional agreement (RRA), but other towns in the district balked at the provision, endangering the entire RRA and possibly even the school building project.
Minuteman School Committee delays vote
The MSC was expected to vote last night (December 15) on the IMA as well as the RRA and bonding for the $149 million school project, but they deferred a vote until after another selectman’s summit on Thursday, Dec. 17 at 7 p.m. in Weston Town Hall. The MSC scheduled a special meeting to vote on the three items on Monday, Dec. 21 at 6 p.m. at Minuteman.
MSC members said they wanted to give their selectmen another chance to meet in person to discuss the draft IMA and, if necessary, suggest amendments. Concord selectmen were “quite vocal” in the opposition to the payment to Lincoln as part of the regional agreement, “and I don’t know if they would find more palatable as a side IMA,” said Carrie Flood, Concord’s MSC representative. Some MSC members also wanted to amend the IMA to include a provision for reviewing and renewing the agreement after a period of time.
Sharon Antia, Lincoln’s MSC representative, opposes the notion of host community compensation because she sees it as an obstacle to the RRA and because it might set a precedent for other districts. “As a good steward of the district… I still don’t understand why as a School Committee it makes sense to us to ratify this, other than to move the regional agreement along,” she said at the MSC meeting.
“I am disappointed that the School Committee chose not to approve the proposed IMA, which was carefully crafted and negotiated over the past week or so,” Braun said on Wednesday, adding that he was not speaking for the entire Board of Selectmen. “The [Lincoln] selectmen and Finance Committee will of necessity continue to evaluate our options, in my view, on a continuing search for a way to accommodate everybody’s interests.”
Changes in the revised regional agreement
The revised regional agreement specifies how much each town will pay for the new high school; changes the formula for assessing other capital costs and representation for each town; and requires non-district towns that send students to Minuteman to pay a share of capital costs as well as tuition. The new formula uses a rolling average of each town’s Minuteman enrollment over the previous four years and reduces the minimum enrollment for purposes of the calculation from five students to one. It also includes a provision for “wealth” factors (each town’s property values and income) based on the state’s education funding policy.
At Town Meeting in March, Lincoln budgeted $152,790 for sending students to Minuteman in 2015-16. The enrollment is now higher than projected, with 10 students and one post-graduate student currently enrolled. Braun has said that Lincoln is now paying $30,000 to $32,000 per student; under the RRA, the per-student cost will rise to about $40,000 a year, he said. On the other hand, if the RRA is not approved, the town’s total assessment will more than double next year to $320,000, according to Minuteman Superintendent/Director Edward Bouquillon.
The RRA will also provide an expedited process for towns to withdraw from the district. Five specific towns may withdraw from the district as of July 1, 2017. Those towns and their 2015-16 enrollment are Boxborough (5), Dover (2), Sudbury (24), Wayland (2), and Weston (4). Any other towns that want to withdraw later will still be responsible for their share of the debt for the new school building.
However, because Minuteman’s minimum enrollment basis will drop from five to one if the RRA goes through, other towns including Watertown, Wellesley and Everett, which do not have vocational high school programs, might be interested in joining the district, Bouquillon said. Watertown is already sending 65 out-of-district students to Minuteman this year (second only to Arlington, which has 117), while Wellesley and Everett each send four.
Possible next steps
If the IMA and revised regional agreement are approved by the MSC next week, the 16 members towns must each call a Special Town Meeting within 60 days to vote on the two agreements (and, if desired, on withdrawing from the district). They must also vote before June 30 on the bond issue for the new school, but that can be done at regular Annual Town Meetings if they prefer
“I’m hoping and expecting there will be a reaffirmation of what we’ve been able to accomplish in redrafting these provisions,” Bouquillon said on Wednesday, adding that the MSBA and the state education department have given a green light to the RRA. “Now that we have everyone’s blessing, I’m hoping they’re not changing too much” at Thursday’s selectman summit.
Lincoln’s Capital Planning Committee is also meeting with Minuteman officials tonight (December 16) at 7:30 p.m. in the Town Office Building.