• Degen Proposes Independent Fiscal Oversight Committee for School Budget

Regional School Districts were established under state statute with the intent of enabling rural communities to create a critical mass of students to share ever-increasing educational expenses. To that end, Groton and Dunstable were joined together in a Regional School District in the mid 1960s. As the make-up of district communities change, Regional Agreements are revisited and updated to reflect the changing needs of member towns, a process similar to the Charter Review process. The towns of Groton and Dunstable are now in the process of reviewing and updating their regional school agreement.

Josh Degen, selectmen’s representative to the Regional Agreement Committee, suggested asking that Committee to create ‘a finance committee for the schools’ in order to provide additional fiscal oversight of the school budget. In essence, he proposed mirroring the independent budget oversight process used by both towns for their municipal budgets.

He explained that the budget process for both municipalities and the schools starts with a proposed budget. A Town Manager or administrator proposes each municipality’s preliminary budget, while the Superintendent proposes the schools’ budget.

In the municipal model, the budget is sent to Selectmen, while the schools budget is sent to the school committee. But, unlike the school process, an independent finance committee then vets the municipal budget, discussing it together with Selectmen and the Town Manager, deciding what spending is acceptable and sustainable and what isn’t.

The school budget, on the other hand, is reviewed and vetted by a subcommittee of the same members of the school committee. Degen said, “I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense to have an independent finance committee for the schools and not the budget and finance subcommittee of the school committee.”

He said a finance committee for the schools “should be composed of different individuals than school committee members.” He added that the independent finance committee, with advice from the school committee and administration, would “vet the budget, come to an understanding and make recommendations in terms of implementing and/or spending the money that is purposed by the superintendent.” He said he was proposing a process similar to the towns, “It’s kind of the same process: school committee; finance committee; administration all get together to come up with something collective. I personally think it’s great idea.”

Selectman Anna Eliot agreed with Degen’s proposal saying, “I like the idea very much and we need to take every opportunity there is to collaborate with each other’s budgets because it has a tremendous impact on the whole town.”

Degen said he was just informally floating the idea to gauge the feelings of other members of the Board. Chairman Petropoulos said that he would schedule a formal discussion and vote on the proposal, adding that it would be preferable to say that the whole board had voted in favor of the proposal, rather than simply saying they had ‘discussed it.’

Degen said a new Regional Agreement was likely to come forward at town meeting in spring 2017 with recommended changes to the Regional Agreement.