Millville voters asked to pay up for schools

BLACKSTONE – For the third year in a row, the town of Millville is being asked to convene a special town meeting where voters will be asked to approve $104,750 in additional contributions to the Blackstone-Millville Regional School District’s school budget for next fiscal year.

If the Millville selectmen agree to convene the special town meeting, Millville voters would be asked to increase Millville’s annual assessment to the regional school budget following a vote already taken by voters at the annual town meeting in Blackstone to fund an additional contribution from that town.

On May 8, annual town meeting voters in Millville funded the minimal contribution, but rejected the regional school committee’s request to increase the supplemental contribution by an additional $136,783. At its annual town meeting on May 30, Blackstone voters funded the minimal contribution as well as an additional contribution of $280,000, which surpassed Millville’s vote (per percentage). That means Millville has to come up with an additional $104,750.

“Blackstone has already met its share of the assessment so now for the third year out of the last four, it returns to Millville and they need to call a special town meeting to see if voters in that town are willing to match their additional assessment of $104,750,” Schools Superintendent Allen W. Himmelberger said at last week’s meeting of the school committee, which unanimously voted to recertify the school budget.

As explained by School Committee Chairwoman Jane C. Reggio, because Blackstone passed a motion to increase the supplemental contribution than had originally been proposed, it changed the amount of money in the budget that the school committee had certified initially.

“So, in order to go back to the town of Millville, we need to re-certify the budget at a dollar amount as it relates

to the supplemental investment by Blackstone,” she said at the meeting. “That will designate what Millville’s dollar amount will be and then we will go back to Millville and ask them to schedule a special town meeting.”

In re-certifying the budget, which now stands a $22,458,471, Blackstone’s assessment is now pegged at $8,365,679, and Millville’s is $2,822, 270.

If Millville fails to muster a two-thirds majority vote to approve the $104,750 in additional contributions, the two towns could once again face the prospect of having to hold a so- called Super Town.

The Blackstone-Millville Regional District School Committee has the discretion under state law to call a district wide special town meeting or regional super town meeting, which would be open to all registered voters in both towns. In other words, voters from both Blackstone and Millville would gather under one roof in a blended two-town vote on Millville’s assessment. At that time a recertified budget would then be considered.

Super town meetings rarely take place in Massachusetts, and there has never been one in Blackstone and Millville.