NORTHFIELD — A bill filed by Rep. Paul Mark, D-Peru, in Legislature on June 26 should, if passed, give the Pioneer Valley Regional School District time to sort out its financial problem rather than making rash short-term decisions, Mark said.
The bill allows the district to borrow up to $2 million to fund deficits, about $1 million, in the budgets for the recently ended 2018 fiscal year and the current 2019 fiscal year. The borrowed money can be repaid over a period of up to 10 years.
“It effectively gives the district 2019 to work out its issues,” said Jeff Wulfson, deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
But the bill also imposes strict oversight on the district and the School Committee. For the whole time it takes the district to pay back the borrowed money, a financial overseer appointed by the state must approve virtually all financial decisions, from the entire yearly budget to transfers between individual categories of the budget.
The overseer will also serve as an expert resource to the district, and will work closely with the superintendent and business manager “as they try to bring their financial house in order,” Wulfson said.
If the overseer model fails, the bill also allows the possibility of a financial control board, which would give the state direct control over the district’s finances, effectively putting the district into receivership in its fiscal decisions, but not its educational decisions, Wulfson said.
“We’re not anticipating we’ll have to do that,” Wulfson said. “It’s just sort of a contingency plan.”
Notably, the bill also suspends the district agreement’s section on each town having its own elementary school. Wulfson said that the bill is not intended to force the district to close schools.
“We understand that the decision to close a local elementary school is very difficult,” he said. “There’s a lot of emotions attached to it. … I’m of the opinion that a major decision like that should be done thoughtfully. We’re not going to be the ones to push them to a quick decision on that.”
Rather, Wulfson said, the bill is intended to allow the district to close or restructure its schools if it seems necessary.
“It lets them have that option instead of preventing them from doing that,” he said.
Wulfson emphasized that even though the bill operates on a timeline of up to 10 years, it will not solve the district’s long-term problems.
“This is putting a bandage on some bleeding, but ultimately we’re going to face the problem of how to make rural districts viable in the long term,” Wulfson said.
He pointed out that Franklin County has fewer that 9,000 students and 18 school committees.
“I’m not sure that’s a sustainable model,” he said.
Contact Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-772-0261 ext. 261.