GREENFIELD — The Greenfield School Committee has joined a growing group of municipal leaders advocating for more state funding and formula changes to support the construction of a new Franklin County Technical School building.
The committee voted unanimously on Monday to sign a letter to Gov. Maura Healey, the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) and state legislators seeking additional funding to build the $236.6 million school that would replace the existing 50-year-old facility. The letter, first adopted by the Greenfield City Council last month, has recently made its way to several neighboring communities and gained the support of at least Buckland, Conway, Deerfield, Gill and Sunderland.
Although the school needs to borrow the total $236.6 million to pay for construction, the MSBA is expected to reimburse the municipalities up to $113.8 million, leaving them on the hook for $122.8 million.
Greenfield is slated to see the highest yearly capital assessment of the 19 communities, at $1.87 million, which will result in an approximately $253.71 increase to the property tax bill for the average single-family home.
“The reality is, not just in Greenfield, but across Franklin County, this build, while we love it, we want it, we want the best for our students, and the tech school students are our students, our communities are hard-pressed to make it happen on our own,” School Committee Chair Stacey Sexton said. “The formula itself disadvantages tech schools and their buildings.”
The letter explains that the “current MSBA space guidelines and gross-square-footage allowances fail to recognize the realities of delivering mandated Chapter 74 vocational-technical education. While the MSBA provides minor spatial adjustments for tech schools compared to traditional academic high schools, these allowances fall short of what is actually required to build modern, safe and code-compliant industrial shops.”
The letter asks for an additional capital appropriation for the new tech school building, as well as for the state’s funding formula to be reevaluated. School Committee members said that without such actions, many of the 19 member municipalities would be pushed into needing debt exclusions, and it would impact their ability to fund other public services.
“This letter is asking for an emergency triage because we will bleed out money, because the state is not picking up their fair share on this,” member Ann Childs said.
The Oct. 6 ballot question asking voters whether to construct a new school passed with a simple majority across the 19 member municipalities, 4,106 to 3,522. The measure failed in Greenfield, Buckland, Shelburne, Colrain and Orange.
Committee members signed the letter and said they would like to work with other towns and other school committees to advocate for additional funding.
“It’s gonna have an effect on everybody’s budget,” said Mayor Ginny Desorgher, who also serves on the School Committee. “We can’t do this. It’ll be a huge struggle for everyone. It’s something we believe in but we need some more funding from the state.”
Insurance request
In addition to advocating for tech school funding, the School Committee also voted unanimously to sign a letter to the Group Insurance Commission (GIC) and state legislators requesting the expansion of the GIC coverage area.
The GIC is the state-backed insurance agency that covers health insurance for more than 400,000 state and municipal employees, including employees at Greenfield’s public schools. However, the GIC coverage area only extends across Massachusetts and northern Connecticut, and Greenfield has employees who live in New Hampshire and Vermont.
“Some of our staff members, because of where they live across the border in Vermont and New Hampshire, they, for whatever reason, are not included in the GIC, even though they are in the insurance provider’s coverage area,” Sexton explained. “And their premiums have skyrocketed.”
Desorgher said that the approximately 15 employees living out of state are still able to get insurance through the GIC, but their plans are significantly more expensive.
“It’s so unfair,” she said. “They could be paying $700 more a month than the person teaching in the next classroom, which feels pretty ugly with the price of food and gas right now.”
Sexton noted that the GIC has an exemption for people who are working in Massachusetts and living in Connecticut near the border, but there is no such exemption for people living in New Hampshire and Vermont.
“It feels like a gross inequity, and it’s having a detrimental impact on our staff currently and on our ability to recruit staff in the future,” Sexton said. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
The letter asks the GIC to extend its coverage area to cover the borders of New Hampshire and Vermont, effective at the beginning of the next fiscal year on July 1, 2027.
