BUCKLAND — Amid a procedural error, the Mohawk Trail Regional School District School will not have capital expenses on member towns’ Annual Town Meeting warrants this year.
William Lataille, the district’s business administrator, said several towns had concerns, and Shelburne, in particular, had advised that it would not put a capital expenses article on the Town Meeting warrant, with town officials advising that the request was not in line with the process outlined in the district’s regional agreement.
Per the regional agreement, “On or before Feb. 8, the committee shall annually prepare a tentative maintenance and operating budget for the next fiscal year, including therein provision for any installment of principal or interest to become due in such year on any bonds or other evidence of indebtedness of the district and any other capital costs to be apportioned to the member towns in such year.” This budget season, the School Committee voted unanimously on March 11 to authorize the treasurer to send capital assessment articles to the district’s member towns.
School Committee Chair Martha Thurber said she received an email from the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on Wednesday that the School Committee “didn’t do this right.” According to Thurber, DESE informed the district that requests for capital expenses must be made at the same time as the operating budget, and it wasn’t appropriate to ask towns to add warrant articles for a second time.
Maya Winfrey, a School Committee member from Shelburne, said that in discussions with the Shelburne Finance Committee, members didn’t seem necessarily opposed to the capital expenses, but they were concerned about the lack of a notice. Mohawk Trail Regional School District Superintendent Sheryl Stanton said there’s only so many people who do the work, and that “everything we do is to the best of our ability.”
Lataille said he plans to send letters to town administrators rescinding the capital requests, as when one town does not approve the expenses, the district cannot do the work.
These are not the capital expenses that were already included as part of the fiscal year 2027 budget, which includes bonds issued in November 2022 and December 2016 for projects that have already concluded but for which the district is still paying. These bonds include projects at Mohawk Trail Regional School, like the replacement of the boiler/fire alarm controls and sensors, the replacement or upgrade of other system components and the resealing of parking lots.
At Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School, the district rebuilt and repaired the parking lots and walkways, replaced the fire alarm and heating components, replaced the restroom exhaust fans and completed other miscellaneous projects. At Sanderson Academy in Ashfield, work included resurfacing the parking lots and walkways; repairing and replacing the flooring, siding, doors and windows; adding roof snow bars and heat cables; and system repairs and upgrades.
The 2016 bond issued for Colrain Central School included recaulking the windows and repairing/replacing the flooring, sidewalks and exterior stairs.
According to DESE, capital expenditures typically exceed $5,000, unless they are part of a school construction project.
The list of capital expenditures that were expected to be proposed this year had been whittled down, and ranked by a letter system to indicate what was most urgent to get done. Lataille said the district knew it couldn’t go to the towns with “those extensive lists.”
One expenditure that was used as an example was a lawn mower that costs around $15,000 and has a 15-year lifespan. Lataille said that if lawn mowers were to eventually make their way into the district’s budget plan, it could lead to cuts in personnel.
Lataille said district leaders are “very aware that the budget this year is a strain on our member towns. … We’re dealing with some fixed-cost increases on insurance and other things that drove that budget up. … With that in mind, we tried to keep those capital assessments as low as possible.”
There was some clarification over what is classified as “emergency funding” versus “urgent funding.” An example used by Lataille was when the heating system at Sanderson Academy in Ashfield failed. According to Thurber, there are several projects that aren’t currently considered emergencies, but they are described as “urgent,” and the district probably would not want to wait until next year to address them.
One of these “urgent” projects outlined by Thurber is the key system at Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School. Currently, she said “four or five keys” are needed to access every room in the building, and in the event of an emergency, first responders would need copies of all those keys. Also, due to electrical issues at the aging Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School building, Thurber said extension cords and power strips are being used as a source of electricity, which the Fire Department says poses a fire risk.
Kate Barrows, a School Committee member from Colrain, asked if it may be time to look at the regional agreement, as she said it doesn’t seem as though the district has a formal way to require member towns to put an item on the warrant.
Thurber said that if the district was asking towns to authorize debt, the process would be very clear, but there was some confusion about the process for smaller capital expenses that would not require taking on debt.
The School Committee members also mentioned hearing some pushback from the towns over why they should invest in capital expenditures if the district may be consolidating its school buildings to a single campus in Buckland. The district is undergoing an eligibility phase with the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) to explore the possibility of either new construction or an addition and renovation project at Mohawk Trail Regional School that could accommodate students in the elementary grades. However, Stanton said students will be at these elementary schools for at least five more years.
“The [capital] projects still need to be done,” Lataille said. “We’re going to look at how we can possibly fund them, what we need to do, and then reach back out to the towns when we do them.”
Clarification, April 13, 2026 4:27 pm: This article has been amended to clarify that the capital expenses being rescinded do not include those that were already included as part of the fiscal year 2027 budget, which includes bonds issued in November 2022 and December 2016 for projects that have already concluded but for which the district is still paying.
