The Hawlemont Regional School District School Committee has called a joint Town Meeting between Charlemont and Hawley to approve a school budget for fiscal year 2021.
The meeting, which will ask voters to approve a $2.2 million budget, is scheduled for Saturday at 7 p.m. at Hawlemont Regional Elementary School.
“We are doing it according to the remedy that the law lays out,” said Hawlemont School Committee Chair Hussain Hamdan, a Hawley resident. “We want to make 110 percent sure that come Dec. 1, we have a budget that the Department of Education and the Department of Revenue are going to recognize as having followed the proper procedure.”
The meeting comes after Hawley approved by a Special Town Meeting vote its revised assessment for the school budget — which the School Committee voted on at its Sept. 25 meeting — whereas Charlemont opted to pass its assessment in two parts, the first of which was approved at its Annual Town Meeting in July, before the town received its revised assessment.
An additional $40,737 was approved at a Special Town Meeting in Charlemont on Nov. 14 to pay the full fiscal year 2021 amount.
“This article represents a piecemeal appropriation,” Hamdan said of the additional funding on the Charlemont Special Town Meeting warrant. “I understand the intention of that, but our reading of the statuary language is that the budget as a whole needs to be approved.”
Charlemont Selectboard member Sarah Reynolds said she reached out to the town attorney in advance of the Special Town Meeting, and was advised to present the school budget item as it was written on the meeting’s warrant.
“I’m a little uncomfortable walking out here tonight not voting on it the way our attorney recommended for our town budget,” she said at the meeting on Nov. 14. “Which lawyer is right? I’m just a little nervous here.”
For Charlemont, the operating budget was reassessed at $844,992 and the net capital budget was reassessed at $32,876 for a total $877,869 contribution for fiscal year 2021.
For Hawley, the operating budget was reassessed at $253,770 and the net capital budget was reassessed at $8,271, totaling $262,040.
Although Heath also sends students to Hawlemont, as tuition-paying students, the town does not vote on the school budget.
Hamdan said when the School Committee voted in September on the revised budget, it was under the impression the budget would be voted on as a whole.
The Special Town Meeting in Charlemont, however, fell outside the 45-day period during which the state requires a town to act on a budget that’s been approved by its School Committee. The reason for this is disputed between the committee and the Charlemont Selectboard.
Hamdan said this resulted in the School Committee calling for a joint Town Meeting. Any voter from either town can attend, and the budget will require a majority vote.
Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne