By Alice Waugh
Selectmen from towns in the Minuteman High School district met last week to endorse a new regional agreement with a few minor changes—including adding language that would allow Lincoln to leave the district along with several other towns without having to pay for the new school project.
The Minuteman School Committee (MSC) was scheduled to vote December 15 on three things: the revised regional agreement (RRA), authorizing bonding for the new school, and a proposed intermunicipal agreement (IMA) between Lincoln and the school district to compensate the town for being the school’s host community. But the MSC deferred a vote on all three matters because they wanted selectmen to meet again and affirm their support for the latest versions of the two agreements. Several members also wanted the IMA to include a provision for revisiting the agreement after a period of time.
The MSC is now scheduled to vote on the RRA, the IMA, and bonding authorization for a new school building at a special meeting on Monday, Dec. 21 at 6 p.m. at the high school.
The RRA that was proposed earlier this month would change the voting procedures and the formula for assessing capital costs for district towns. The revised agreement also requires out-of-district towns to pay a share of capital costs as well as tuition for sending students to Minuteman, and gives towns that want to leave the district an expedited means of doing so without having to pay a share of the debt for the new building.
At a December 17 selectmen’s summit, Lincoln Selectman Peter Braun asked that Lincoln be added to the list of towns eligible for expedited withdrawal from the district. Towns listed in that clause of the RRA may withdraw from the district after a simple majority vote at a Town Meeting that must be held by Feb. 16, 2016. Any town that withdraws after that date will still have to pay for three year’ worth of their debt for the building and operating costs.
“We’d like to be included on the list for the purpose of preserving our options… though we have no intention as of now” to withdraw, Braun said. Lincoln’s Capital Planning Committee also discussed the possibility of withdrawing last week.
If the town is not part of the Minuteman district, it can still send students as one of several out-of district towns. Those towns will still have to pay something toward capital costs, though the total bill (depending on a town’s enrollment) could be lower than the per-student cost for in-district towns that have representation on the MSC.
Area selectmen at last week’s summit agreed to recommend that the MSC approve the latest RRA that now includes Lincoln and Carlisle as eligible for expedited withdrawal. The other towns listed in that clause are Boxborough, Dover, Sudbury, Wayland, and Weston.
Officials also hoped to get answers by Monday from the MSC bond counsel and the state education department about if and when withdrawing towns must hold a vote on authorizing a bond issue to pay for the school. The total cost of the building is $144.9 million, though the state will reimburse about a third of that.
Selectmen defer on intermunicipal agreement
Lincoln residents at public discussions in the last two years have said that if the building project goes forward, they want a host community agreement that would help offset the costs of added police and fire protection, among other things. Braun has argued that Lincoln also deserves compensation for the lack of tax revenue from Minuteman’s 47 acres in Lincoln, and changes in the RRA assessment formula that would result in higher costs for Lincoln. The proposed IMA calls for Lincoln to receive $138,000 a yearising with inflation. But other towns in the district as well as Sharon Antia, Lincoln’s representative on the MSC, have balked at meeting Lincoln’s demands.
The selectmen’s summit wasn’t even going to discuss the proposed IMA at first, despite arguments from Braun. “I thought the charge back to this group [from the MSC on December 15] was the whole package… I think the School Committee was looking for direction from this group,” he said. The group eventually talked about the proposed agreement but declined to endorse it, saying it was a matter between Lincoln and the school district.
On the notion of Lincoln recouping some tax revenue for its land, Arlington Selectman Dan Dunn said to Braun that “you’ve zealously advocated for that, but most of the people in the room perceive that to be contrary to the public policy of the Commonwealth.” Dunn added, “Personally, $138,000 is awfully rich for something like this unless there are some significant things the town is going to provide to the district”—a sentiment with which other selectmen voiced agreement.
Braun subsequently backed off his tax-revenue argument, saying, “we have a problem with having to pay more because of the formula. That’s it—it’s just the formula.” However, he was insistent on not having an expiration or renegotiation date for the IMA. “To the extent that it becomes limited by time, it’s useless—it makes it a nonstarter from Lincoln’s viewpoint,” he said.
Lincoln Finance Committee member Laura Sander, who attended the selectmen’s summit, noted that Minuteman has said it will exercise its right under state law to have the new building exempt from Lincoln’s zoning regulations. Withdrawing from the district as well would leave the town with no clout whatsoever.
“For us to be out of district and have a 245,000-square-foot building with no regulatory authority over it is a very tough thing to swallow,” she said.
Boxborough Selectman Vince Amoroso, who was instrumental in hashing out the RRA this fall, told Braun that it was up to Lincoln and the school district to arrive at an IMA themselves.
Now that the latest proposed RRA contains an early exit clause for the town, “Lincoln has the best of all possible scenarios—you have all options available to you,” Amoroso said. “What will and should happen is that Lincoln and the school will engage in meaningful negotiations to arrive at a mutually agreeable IMA that’s not tied to this revised regional agreement… If you can negotiate an IMA with the school, I don’t think anybody here is going to stand in the way. If you can’t, then you have to make the calculation we all do: is it worth staying or should we leave?”
In short order, Lincoln will need to determine if withdrawal is “feasible from an economic, educational and practical standpoint, and whether has legs politically in Lincoln,” Braun said. “We’ve done zero homework on this issue.”
The Lincoln Board of Selectmen will discuss the Minuteman issue at their regular meeting tomorrow (Monday, Dec. 21) at 7:30 p.m., shortly after the MSC meets. Braun said he will propose that the board call a Special Town Meeting before February 16 for residents to vote on approving the revised regional agreement and on whether or not to withdraw from the Minuteman school district.