3 towns demand $1.3M reduction in budget; Holden, Sterling less firm on school.

Byline: Jean Laquidara Hill

PAXTON - Three of the five towns in the Wachusett Regional School District - Paxton, Princeton and Rutland - are insisting on a $1.3 million decrease in the school district's proposed budget for the coming year.

One of the other two towns, Holden, will support a $1 million decrease - a cut officials said was offered by the school superintendent.

Holden Finance Committee member Alan R. Berg urged officials from the other member towns to support the lower decrease, saying the $1 million compromise could be accomplished but not the $1.3 million decrease.

The fifth town, Sterling, is split. The finance board supports a $1.3 million decrease in the proposed $73.2 million budget. The Sterling selectmen have not yet voted on the issue but would not likely to support that large a cut, according to two selectmen at the meeting, Richard Sheppard and Paul Paul Sushchyk.

The proposed $73.2 million budget is 5.9 percent more than the current year's budget of $69.1 million.

Decreasing the proposed increase by $1.3 million would cap the regional school district's budget increase at 4 percent - but none of the officials who declared their positions last night has control over the school district's budget.

"It would appear to me that we're going to have to prepare for a fight on the town meeting floor," Paxton Selectman Frederick G. Goodrich told the group.

The strategy, he said, is to stand firm and "drive a stake" through the proposed 5.9 percent increase and slow the annual growth of the school budget.

Otherwise, he said, Paxton and other district towns will not have enough money left to pay police and other town employees this year or in years to come.

At issue, is Paxton, Princeton and Rutland officials' assertion that their towns cannot afford the proposed school budget without decimating town services, and that each annual increase provides a bigger base for increases for the following year.

This year, the proposed school budget is affordable for Sterling and Holden, according to David J. White, chairman of Holden Board of Selectmen, and Sterling Selectman Sheppard.

Even so, Sterling and Holden officials expressed concern about the school budget increasing by 5.9 percent next year, saying that it expands the base for the following years' budgets when state reimbursements to the towns are expected to be lean.

Sterling finance board members Lisa B. Call and Larry R. Pape said they will stand their ground with the other three towns seeking the $1.3 million decrease.

Positions on the budget were presented and discussed at a meeting of selectmen and finance board members from the member towns, with Princeton officials absent due to other commitments.

Princeton selectmen, however, voted Monday morning to support the $1.3 million decrease. Rutland selectmen took their vote Monday night, Donald D'Auteil, chairman of Rutland Board of Selectmen, told regional officials last night.

The voted positions are intended to urge Wachusett Regional School Committee and School Superintendent Thomas G. Pandiscio to cut the budget before the five towns each hold their town meetings next month. Mr. Pandiscio and his staff developed the budget, which was approved by the school board last month for presentation to the five upcoming town meetings.

The only body with the authority to adopt or reject the budget is the town meeting in each town. Four of the five towns would have to approve the budget in order for it to take effect July 1.

Mr. Goodrich said he and other town officials took similar stands against school budget increases in recent years, but weakened and approved school budgets they believed were too high.