Blackstone, Millville set for crucial meeting
BLACKSTONE — Residents of Blackstone and Millville will meet together under one roof Wednesday in a rare district-wide town meeting to break a voter impasse over supplemental contributions to the regional school district’s school budget for next fiscal year.
The meeting, which was called for by the Blackstone-Millville Regional District School Committee, begins at 7 p.m. in the Blackstone-Millville Regional High School auditorium and will be open to all registered voters in Blackstone and Millville.
District wide town meeting, sometimes called super town meetings, have only convened a handful of times in the Commonwealth, and there has never been one in Blackstone and Millville. If the auditorium is filled to capacity on Wednesday, the cafeteria will be wired up to accommodate the overflow of voters.
“It’s anybody’s guess how this will turn out,” said Blackstone Selectman Robert J. Dubois. “Blackstone is the larger town, but you are going to have those people who just don’t want to spend any more money. It all depends on who shows up. But the people who do show up know how they are going to vote. What we’re voting on is no big secret. Everyone knows what the issue is.”
Former Blackstone town administrator and local attorney Dan Doyle will moderate the meeting, which will be like any other town meeting where voters will be able to
discuss the article and make amendments. Voting on the budget will likely be done by secret ballot.
“I think Dan Doyle will do a good job,” Dubois. “Everything will be done fair and square.”
Super town meetings are allowed by the state to force compromise if one or both of the towns in a regional school district fail to provide funding for their district assessment after two rounds of voting. If that happens, the regional school committee schedules a combined district-wide meeting, often called a “super town meeting” in a single venue with its own moderator.
This regional meeting includes all eligible voters from both towns who vote on a single article - the school budget. If the regional vote fails, the school committee reconsiders its budget (it may or may not reformulate it) and calls another regional meeting. This super town meeting step can be repeated as many times as necessary to approve budget funding.
The single warrant article on Wednesday’s warrant will ask voters to approve a re-certified school budget of $22,623,707, which includes an $8,562,533 assessment to Blackstone and a $2,919,338 assessment to Millville.
The Blackstone assessment includes $6,317,741 in minimal contributions; $1,347,481 in exclusionary costs; and $897,311 in supplemental investments.
The Millville assessment included $2,074,258 in minimal contributions; $507,776 in exclusionary costs; and $337,804 in supplemental investments.
The Blackstone-Millville super town meeting is being held because Millville voters at a special town meeting last month failed to muster a two-thirds majority vote to pass an article approving $39,000 in additional contributions to the regional school budget.
At the Millville annual town meeting in May, annual town meeting voters in Millville funded the minimal contribution and an additional amount of money. At its annual town meeting, Blackstone voters funded the minimal contribution and funded an additional $99,425 supplemental contribution that surpassed Millville’s vote (per percentage). That meant that Millville had to come up with an additional $39,000 supplemental investment. But that funding request was rejected by voters.
As a result, the Blackstone-Millville Regional District School Committee had three options. The first was to re-certify a lower budget figure at $22,484,000, which would match what both towns have already voted on. The second option was to keep the May 30 re-certified budget of $22,623,707 and offset the amount not approved by Millville with new revenue sources. Those new revenue sources included a $70,000 increase in transportation reimbursement from the state.
The third option was to call a regional super town meeting and resubmit the same budget. The committee decided on the third option, which means voters in both Blackstone and Millville will now vote on a budget that includes Blackstone’s $99,425 and the requested $39,000 in additional contributions from Millville.