Mount Greylock Regional School Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Greene addresses Williamstown's Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Town officials had some tough questions about the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee's plan to seek expansion of the junior-senior high school district.

School Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Greene appeared last week at a joint meeting of the Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee to discuss the proposal to ask Williamstown and Lanesborough to incorporate their elementary schools into the Mount Greylock district.

The School Committee studied expansion in 2013, convening an ad hoc committee of representatives from both towns and all three schools. But Mount Greylock put the initiative on the backburner in fall '13 after the district was accepted into the Massachusetts School Building Authority's building program.

Now that the district has entered the MSBA's feasibility study, the School Committee is looking to bring regional expansion to town voters this year — either at the spring annual town meetings or at special town meetings in the fall.

Members of the Finance Committee pressed Greene for details on the tax impact of such an expansion.

She told them that the School committee and its financial consultants have run multiple simulations of how the three schools would be funded in a single district, and though uncertainty remains, a couple of things are clear.

"The gist of it is, it's a wash in terms of savings to the two towns," Greene said. "Williamstown will pay more and Lanesborough will pay less, but the net difference is negligible.

"That's why [school] regions don't form in Massachusetts. There aren't real incentives put out there by the state."

Even one incentive often cited by school officials — the transportation reimbursement to regional districts — is difficult to project, she said.

"It finally went up to 90 percent this year, and then they said they're going to drop it back to 65 percent," she said. "It's hard to hang your hat on transportation reimbursement."

Likewise, the MSBA may offer additional reimbursement to expanded districts, but Mount Greylock likely would not find out whether or how much until after it expands.

"So what's our motivation to do this?" Finance Committee member Daniel Gendron asked. "Is there any value we can put on that so we can say, as Williamstown people, I guess it's worth subsidizing Lanesborough's [elementary] education?

"If it costs us more ongoing to educate our children because we regionalize, what's the point?

"A Williamstown taxpayer could ask, 'Why should we care about educating Lanesborough kids?' "

Greene explained that elementary education in both towns already has benefited from coordination under the Tri-District central administration, a shared services agreement between Mount Greylock, Williamstown Elementary and Lanesborough Elementary that expanded regionalization would formalize.

And the educational benefits of coordinated curricula and cooperation among faculty at the three schools pays off when students from the two "feeder" schools matriculate to the seventh grade at Mount Greylock.

"Why should you care about Lanesborough?" Greene asked Gendron. "Because your kids are going to school with kids from Lanesborough."

As for financial benefit, Greene said the two towns' taxpayers are already reaping rewards of greater efficiency under the Tri-District, which regionalization would formalize and streamline.

"We've saved an estimated $400,000 already," Greene said. "This further solidifying the relationship is not being done for financial reasons. It's being done for other things like educating the whole child. It's being done because our kids don't see the difference between Williamstown and Lanesborough."

Greene's newest colleague on the Mount Greylock Regional School Committee spoke at the meeting in support of expanded regionalization, emphasizing that the cost savings that stem from the Tri-District could go away if — as some in Lanesborough have suggested — Lanesborough Elementary withdraws from Superintendency Union 71, its partnership with Williamstown.

"I found there were a lot of compelling reasons [to regionalize]," said Wendy Penner, a Williamstown resident who was elected to the Mount Greylock School Committtee in November. "There are efficiencies and cost savings of the union and the shared-services agreement, and those could go away easily right now. Right now, either one of the [elementary] school committees could dissolve those relationship. … To me, that's the best reason to preserve it."

But that argument was countered by Williamstown Selectman Hugh Daley.

"The primary question for me is our partner in the region doesn't seem to be interested in the relationship," Daley said. "It's kind of like: We're living together, it's not working out, let's get married."

Greene said the relationship is working, even if not all elected officials in both towns agree.

"We have all worked very hard to create community at Mount Greylock," she said. "I think my response about the politics is the kids don't feel it, the teachers don't see it and the parents in Lanesborough are very supportive of regionalization, for the most part.

"What I try to keep in mind is the fact that there is a disconnect between many of the town officials in Lanesborough and the voting public."

There are other issues beyond financing and political instability in the region, Greene said.

From a Williamstown standpoint, there are concerns about the level of funding in a combined district. Currently, each town votes the budget for its own elementary school, and the towns share funding at Mount Greylock by proportions set out in the regional agreement.

Under expanded regionalization, the region — i.e. both towns — would vote the K-12 budget.

The fear for Williamstown residents is that there have been recent years when Williamstown contributed less than it was able to the Mount Greylock budget because Lanesborough was not able to increase its funding to match. State law does not allow for towns in a district to disproportionately fund a district school.

Williamstown-Lanesborough interim Superintendent Gordon Noseworthy, right.

"The town of Williamstown supports the elementary school in the way the [WES] Committee asks to be supported," Greene said. "In Lanesborough, we're usually told to cut the [Mount Greylock] budget."

Lanesborough residents have their own concerns, Greene said. Specifically, the residents of the smaller town in a potentially expanded region are concerned about losing local control and even the school itself.

Greene noted that state law prohibits a district from closing a school without a vote of residents in the town it serves, so Lanesborough would be protected. And interim Tri-District Superintendent Gordon Noseworthy said the School Council in each of the three schools would have an expanded role in directing practices at the three schools while a single Mount Greylock School Committee would focus on budget, hiring a superintendent and determining policy.

"The principal has to have a School Council," Noseworthy said. "With apologies to anyone on the PTO, the School Council isn't brownie baking. The School Council has a specific charge ... to protect the culture of the school within a region."

Greene said the Mount Greylock School Committee plans to do more outreach to discuss specific town concerns — including financing — in advance of the vote. Last week's meeting with Williamstown's Finance Committee and Selectmen left her feeling that outreach will take too much time to bring a vote to May's Williamstown annual town meeting.

"It sounds like we need more time to do what you're looking for," she said. "Maybe we should think about fall 2015."

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