TO: Board of Selectmen
FROM: Carter Terenzini, Town Administrator
RE: Administrator’s Weekly Report
DATE: February 14, 2019
CC: All Departments



Weekly Report:
We have received the $30k grant from the Community Compact to fund the study of our (T’ton and P’ston) shared Fire/EMS Departments. We have circulated the first cut at a Draft w/P’ston and hope to finalize it and have it out on the street by 02/28. Budget work has consumed the week with the so-called “Last Call” budget going out to all departments for review and comment. It does provide for a 2 ½% increase to Monty Tech and the NRSD but – for the moment – assumes the balance of their needs are met with their Over-Ride. The Request for Letters of Interest was issued to fifteen parties we were able to identify, and we included the BES Disposition flyer in it as well. We will continue to try to identify additional parties over the next two weeks or so. We received the perambulation results from Hubbardston (MGL Ch. 42 §2). Staff is researching when this was last done with our adjoining towns as it is statutory required every five year (although it is honored in the breach across most of the state).

NRSD - their override???

Templeton, like all other communities in the Commonwealth, must provide a sum of money to provide for an adequate education of children. So, the Narragansett Regional School District / school committee decide on a budget, level funded, level service, increase in staffing, etc., and then the NRSD comes up with the cost for Phillipston and Templeton. According to state law, the district sends the assessment or bill, to Templeton, it is up to the selectmen to come up with a way or plan on how to deal with that "bill", for service.

The selectmen have options on how to pay that bill, one of those options is an increase of the levy, or prop 2 1/2 override; it is the responsibility of the selectmen to do that, not the school committee. The selectmen are charged with the finncial affairs of the Town, they are charged with placing items on the Town Meeting warrant. If there is an override, it will be a Templeton override, to pay Templeton charges, assessments or bills. The school district is a cost of the Town and there fore it would be, if called for, a Templeton override, it would be the selectmen's override, not the NRSD override.

The selectmen can try to spin it this way or that way, but in the end, if the route chosen is a prop 2 1/2 override, it will be for the operating costs of the Town of Templeton, it will be on the selectmen!