ROWE — A special town meeting will be held mid-November, so that residents can decide whether to rejoin the Mohawk Trail Regional School District as a Grade 7 through 12 member-town, or stay with its current tuition arrangement.
Town officials haven’t yet set a date for the meeting, but they want to have an answer for Mohawk by December — before budget plans are made for the 2017-18 school year. Also, since Mohawk’s eight member towns have all voted for a regional agreement change that enables Rowe to rejoin, a Rowe vote this calendar year will avoid a possible state requirement for the other towns to vote a second time, in a new calendar year.
At a joint meeting Thursday, Selectmen, School and Finance Committee members agreed to set the motion in process. But they haven’t yet decided if they’ll recommend joining Mohawk.
“Being part of the community and wanting to have better representation” are the advantages that school board Chairwoman Susan Zavotka sees in becoming a member town of Mohawk. “It’s the financial part that’s tricky,” she said. Rowe town officials want Mohawk to address their questions about the formula used to calculate Rowe’s tuition.
At an earlier meeting this year, town officials said the financial benefits to joining Mohawk were “a wash,” but having a vote on secondary school issues and having a more active role on the Mohawk school board would be an advantage.
For now, each of the boards will discuss rejoining Mohawk at their meetings before recommending an up or down vote to residents.
Rowe was a founding town of the Mohawk Regional School District, which was only a regional middle- and high school district when it formed. Rowe was asked to leave the district in the early 1980s, because its high tax valuation made Mohawk ineligible for thousands of dollars in state Chapter 70 aid. In 1982, Rowe left the district and has been paying tuition for its students since then. But it does not receive state regional transportation aid for its school buses to Mohawk, nor does it have a vote on any Mohawk school issues.
This year, Mohawk officials reported that Rowe’s rejoining Mohawk would not affect Mohawk’s Chapter 70 state aid, which is calculated town-by-town. If Rowe rejoins the district, Mohawk officials predict that the additional assessment would slightly reduce the assessments of the other member towns, while saving Rowe on regional transportation costs — because of state transportation reimbursement. If Rowe had joined this year, the town would have saved about $15,000, while Mohawk would have gained about $39,000 in additional revenue.
If Rowe joins Mohawk, it would have two committee members on the Mohawk school board, each with a 1.9 weighted vote on an 18-member regional school board. Every 10 years, the school board would review its nine member towns’ populations, to adjust the weighted voted of its school committee members. Like Hawley and Charlemont, Rowe would not vote on elementary school matters, because their elementary schools are not part of the Mohawk district.
Also, besides a yearly operating assessment, Rowe would be assessed for future capital costs for the Mohawk Trail Regional School.