We encourage Shutesbury residents to vote against Article 2 at Saturday’s Town Meeting, and to amend the Amherst Regional School (grades 7-12 only, not Shutesbury Elementary School) budget by subtracting $311,476 from the amount proposed for Shutesbury to pay. The article should be taken up early in the Town Meeting, shortly after 9 a.m.

Here’s the background:

In 1993, the Massachusetts Legislature passed the Education Reform Act. This was progressive legislation for its time that sought to help level the playing field between municipalities of differing means, a form of wealth redistribution that Bernie Sanders might have authored. Maybe he did because, following our lead, Vermont passed its own, more sweeping version four years later.

Along with the act came a method — the statutory method — of determining how a regional school system’s costs are divided between member towns. The division intentionally is not equal; the less wealthy towns contribute somewhat reduced amounts, and the difference is made up by their neighbors with higher household incomes and property values.

The statutory method is in use by most (72 percent) of the state’s regional school systems right now, according to the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. An alternative method may be used only if all the towns within the region agree and vote the same way at their Town Meetings. Each town must vote favorably or the statutory method applies.

Shutesbury has for many years agreed to an alternative regional school assessment method instead of using the statutory method. This year, accepting the alternative method will result in $311,000 in added costs to our town. At 4.7 percent of our proposed town budget, this additional burden has a tremendous impact. This amounts to $173 per resident, $692 for a family of four in fiscal 2020 alone.

Agreeing to this every year since 2011 has resulted in $1,717,852 in added regional school costs to Shutesbury. This amount is almost what the town will expend on broadband, more than what our local contribution toward a new library might be, and enough to do some serious road work. If Article 2 is approved, the cumulative total will rise to $2,029,328.

Some Shutesbury residents brought these inequities to the attention of our town officials about five years ago. The other three towns in the region with higher incomes and property values — Amherst, Leverett, and Pelham — were then put on notice that Shutesbury was not content to continue on this path.

However, years of four-town negotiations and assurances that we were on a better course have not proven out, in part because we have not bargained with authority. The other towns outnumber us in the voting, and, from what I’ve witnessed in these negotiating sessions myself, Shutesbury gets pushed around.

This upcoming year, as opposed to the statutory method, Amherst, Leverett, and Pelham will contribute $205,000, $83,000, and $23,000 less, respectively, while Shutesbury contributes $311,000 more. Why should Shutesbury, with lower incomes and property values, underwrite the three wealthier towns?

However, the only way this actually happens is if all four towns vote for it at their Town Meetings. If one town rejects to the alternative method proposed, the region defaults to the statutory method and Shutesbury’s contribution is reduced by $311,000. Although the other three towns must make appropriate adjustments, the overall regional school budget is not changed simply by voting in the statutory method.

Meanwhile, Shutesbury’s overall town budget will be reduced to below that of last year, there will be a property tax decrease this year, and perhaps even some additional funds to pay for what we need as a town.

There are other alternative methods the region could consider. In 2015, I was member of a Shutesbury task force to study these issues. With the assistance of the Amherst Regional school finance director, we analyzed a half-dozen various regional funding methods.

The statutory method scored financially best for Shutesbury, but we determined that calculating it using a five-year-rolling-average (smooths out drastic changes in enrollment) would be the most predictable of all the methods for each town’s annual budgeting purposes. This approach would be somewhat less financially advantageous for Shutesbury, but we felt it was better for the region and selected it as the preferred method.

Because it’s not the straight statutory method, adopting this variation with a five-year-rolling-average would also require mutual agreement between the towns. But, our neighbors have shown no interest in going anywhere with us on that. Amherst, Leverett and Pelham will not seriously negotiate with Shutesbury unless they know we will default to statutory. And that is why Shutesbury needs to decline the alternative method this year by voting down Article 2.

Let’s make it fair!

This letter is signed by 14 current and former Shutesbury town officials.