School and town leaders passed a proposal Wednesday to request state money for two new positions — coordinators of transportation and shared services — as part of a renewed push to consolidate functions among school districts and municipalities.
The county intends to request $200,000 from the state Legislature for the two new jobs, Superintendent of Mohawk Trail and Hawlemont Regional School Districts Michael Buoniconti said Wednesday.
Efforts to consolidate services come as a response to the campaign led by state rural school leaders to increase their funding by adding a “rurality factor” into Chapter 70 of the budget. State representatives requested a shared services proposal last month when school superintendents, teachers and students visited Beacon Hill for the inaugural Rural Schools Day.
The two proposed jobs would examine ways to consolidate services between school districts and towns. A regional shared services coordinator would “explore collaborations and test the feasibility of partnerships,” said Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG) Executive Director Linda Dunlavy, who conceived the role. A transportation coordinator would look at ways to combine bus routes to different schools – especially special education vehicles – as they often overlap, Buoniconti said.
Schools and towns discussed consolidating other services as well, including information technology, human resources and health insurance.
The concept of sharing services isn’t new – county school districts have made some efforts over the years. One noteworthy example was in 2008, Dunlavy said, when county schools were prompted to merge some services after the state Legislature announced it would force the consolidation of school districts across the state.
“We thought in Franklin County that we should get ahead of that and come up with ideas of how we would be more efficient, how we could provide education in a stronger, better way,” Dunlavy said.
Some changes were made: school building managers have met monthly since 2008, for example, Dunlavy said.
“Lots came from that, and lots didn’t,” Dunlavy said. “I think it’s interesting to start again, and to think about how can we collaborate, how can we work together as a region to solve our collective needs.”
Franklin County Technical School has centralized some services including health insurance, as well as calendar and bell services, said business manager Russ Kaubris, who noted the decision needed to come from school leaders.
“As politically incorrect as it sounds, it’s got to be a top-down decision,” Kaubris said. “If you wait for a consensus among IT guys, it’s not going to happen.”
Hawlemont and Mohawk school districts already have a central information office providing remote support to 90 percent of the schools, Buoniconti said. The two districts were ready to “cut a deal,” he said, with another area to share information technology services.
Tari Thomas, superintendent of Orange, Petersham and Ralph C. Mahar school districts, said she has consolidated certain services over the years, including reducing payroll and slashing an in-house information technology and using contractors. While there were drawbacks to eliminating in-house information technology services, Thomas said, the move cut costs significantly.
“You know, there’s pluses and minuses … but it reduced our costs by $100,000,” Thomas said.
Sharing services among towns and schools was also discussed Wednesday. Leyden Municipal Assistant Michelle Giarusso expressed support for the idea, saying the town couldn’t afford certain services on its own.
“I don’t understand why we are paying so much money in our administrative side for payroll services,” Giarusso said. “Those kinds of things we’ve got to start thinking out of the box … and not trying to protect what we have because the small towns can’t afford it anymore.”
Conway Town Administrator Tom Hutcheson supported the notion of sharing services, while admitting his town’s information technology system is a “really great set up.” Hutcheson was hesitant about having one person responsible for too many towns.
“If we’re talking about a region-wide system, it’s going to be more than one person … I wouldn’t want one person to be responsible,” Hutcheson said. “They need to be on call and they need to be available really quickly. That’s one of the reason we’re satisfied, because it’s a one-person shop, so customer service is really good, but he couldn’t do that for a lot of towns.”
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