UMass Mullins Center straddles Amherst & Hadley
So what are we, chopped liver?
Hadley just recently renewed a deal with UMass to cover municipal police costs associated with the Mullins Center, which is only partially on Hadley property and the other part in Amherst.
Hadley gets a 10% raise, from $50,000 to $55,000 annually.
But the annoying this is whether the Mullins Center is in Hadley or Amherst, either way, any medical call is handled by Amherst Fire Department, because Hadley does not have an ambulance service.
And on nights the Mullins Center hosts Electronic Dance Music events AFD is often stretched to the breaking point.
The town signed a "Five Year Strategic Partnership" with UMass to cover AFD ambulance runs to campus (but not the more expensive fire related runs) back in 2007. It expired June 30, 2012 -- almost three years ago!
Sure the pact was continued on an interim basis the past three years and resulted in the regular $370,000 in ambulance reimbursements plus the extra $80,000 UMass kicked in a few years back to cover extra high ambulance demand on weekends when schools are in session.
So even a lousy 10% increase in that formal signed multi-year agreement would generate an extra $45,000 annually, or enough to pay a little over half the salary of the new Economic Development Director.
But after School Superintendent Maria Geryk told the Amherst Finance Committee and Town Meeting that children living in tax exempt UMass housing cost the Amherst Public Schools well over $1 million annually, the town may be looking for a better offer than a paltry 10% increase.
Representative Stephen Kulik recently filed a bill (with Mass Municipal Association support) that would allow cities and towns to collect from tax exempt entities 25% of what they should be paying if they were assessed like everybody else.
Unfortunately, since UMass is "government" owed, they may still be exempt should the bill miraculously become law.
But at least Amherst could then extract money from Hampshire College the #3 landowner in town who pays nothing for Payment In Lieu Of Taxes, unlike Amherst College who pays $90,000 annually for AFD services.
Ah, the burdens that come with being a "college town."
Hampshire College really pays nothing?
ReplyDeleteReally. Nothing.
ReplyDeleteLarry, as you seem the only the game in town for something approaching investigative journalism please consider looking into the Amherst Elementary and APRS budgets. Last year (FY 2015) in the Finance Committee Report (p 39) it says “The DOR has suggested that instead of appropriating the assessment money to
ReplyDeletethe School Department, the Town retain the funds and pay the assessment directly. By the Town retaining the assessment funds of $992,344, the total appropriation to
the School Department will be eliminated for Choice-Out Tuition and Charter School Assessments, and the expense budget for the Schools will be reduced by the same amount. This change will have no effect on the School Department’s spending, as the rest of the budget will not change” However, the budget total should have changed dramatically, right? Wasn’t the cost of choice/charter included in the previous year (FY 2014)? So the best and most transparent way of presenting costs (and increases or decreases) would be to include the FY2014 (minus the cost of choice/charter) and then the cost of FY2015 (that now no longer has those costs embedded)? What I think happened is that the elementary schools just got to keep that $992,344 in its base budget.
What happened at the ARPS level is hard to tell, as there is no mention of this money in the FY2015 Finance report (like that included in the elementary school section) and yet around 100 students are choice/charter, which is about $1.8 million. Does the town now pay that? If so then in FY2015, ARPS got $1.8 million added to there base (I certainly see no evidence of a cut of that size).
Could this kind of (dubious?) accounting coincide with Mr. Detweiler’s mysterious departure?
I think the change with the town paying the charter & choice assessments directly is just an accounting thing & I thought that a reasonable explanation was provided of this change at town meeting.
ReplyDeletehowever, there are always some good investigative stories to be found in our public schools -- including the updates on Detweiler, Gardner, Dylan Akalis & his dad, other complaints that have been filed against the district, the superintendent's annual evaluation (shouldn't that be coming up soon?) & more.
I think the moose will give her a thumbs up.
ReplyDeleteanon@702, I'm sure you understand. The question is that if now the town directly pays (through the Town gov budget) then the amount that used to be paid through an appropriation to the schools, should be reflected in a large (~ 1 Million for the elementary and perhaps nearly 1 million for the ARPS). Just point me to that reduction and I'll be satisfied. Was the charter/choice costs always budgeted in the "regular" education line item? And now that it is in the town government budget, what line item does it fall under?
ReplyDeleteResearch it yourself.
ReplyDeleteLol. Thank you, Larry.
DeleteDoesn't Hadley contract with Amherst for AFD Ambulance?
ReplyDeleteFor ALL of Hadley's territory, including it's half of the Mullins Center.
Hence what right does Amherst have to ask for money to support ambulance services that Hadley has already paid Amherst to provide, in Hadley? That's double billing...
Hadley contracts with AFD for residents of Hadley. Students (or patrons) using the part of the Mullins Center in Hadley are not living there.
ReplyDeleteNonsense - e.g. any patron at the malls or other commercial places in Hadley, or on roads in Hadley, who needs ambulance service is going to get that from AFD, regardless of their residency - and that's what Hadley contracts with AFD to do.
ReplyDelete"Hadley contracts with AFD for residents of Hadley."
ReplyDeleteLarry, the "Equal Protection" clause of the 14th Amendment was explicitly written to prevent this -- although I would argue that some of John Adams' 1780 language in the Massachusetts Constitution does as well.
Hadley doesn't have to have an ambulance service -- or even a police department -- and historically, a lot of places didn't.
Boston didn't have a police department before 1838, Northampton didn't before 1884, and as the APD neglected to include their history (and working HTML code) on their webpage, I have no idea when the Amherst Police Dept was formed, but I doubt it dates back to the founding of the town.
Again, while a municipality doesn't have to provide ambulance service, or to contract with someone else (either AFD or Lifeline) -- if it does, that ambulance service must be provided to everyone in the municipality who needs it, REGARDLESS of why they are there!
Think about this for a minute: There is a head-on collision on Route 9 -- one driver from Hadley, the other from NYC. The Hadley PD are going to leave the NYC guy bleeding to death in the middle of Russell Street because he is a NYC resident? (They'd go to jail for that.)
It's the same thing if the ambulance crew decides it doesn't want to treat/transport someone because he is a derelict druggie -- you can't do that either.
Nor can your municipal ambulance service be "Whites Only" -- that has been tried and stomped on, repeatedly stomped on, by both SCOTUS and the various licensing folks. As residency (in the all-White town) was often used with the intent to mean "White Only", residency itself has been stomped on, big time, by the courts.
Larry, you can't have public safety be "residents only."
Larry is right, folks who are not residents of Amherst or Hadley cannot expect the services afforded to the people of those towns, nor should they are they are in fact second class citizens once they leave their hometowns. You cannot just pick a town and send your kid to school there, the plows from another town don't come and plow your street.
ReplyDeleteJust basic logic, you don't walk into someone's home and just start eating from the fridge. America is based on a class system and people should learn to respect this in advance of being forced to by the upper class's police. It is based on the royalty systems of days past, well established. Your parents were likely in the same class.
Well, we do always hear about the middle class. All the time.That's the one to which I belong. Would prefer to move up a class, but not in the cards, at this stage of life. May go down a class yet, but hope to avoid living like Ratso Rizzo.
Delete
ReplyDeleteI saw that today the superintendent's office has sent out a link to a community survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RK6Q2ZK) to get people's feedback about the superintendent, the schools, and the school committee. It will be interesting to see what the survey results show.
On its last question, the survey requires that people enter their names, & the survey cannot be completed without that information. What will all the anon commenters who make legitimate criticisms about the schools do? Are they willing to attach their names to their words?
& I wonder if such a requirement is necessary. The survey already limits responses to once per browser per computer.
We anons are often referred to as cowardly, but I work for ARPS and prefer to live like a pod person rather than risk losing my job. I need to pay the mortgage, after all. I met Ms. Geryk once. She was very nice. I just disagree with the school system agenda. Not enough to go to the matresses for, though.
DeleteWhen we removed our kids from Amherst schools we were given a survey to fill out. It asked if we would like to be contacted about our experience and both times we said yes. Never even got confirmation that anyone read it. They don't care.
ReplyDeleteHow can be know that all the results of the survey (sent out and collected by the SI office) will see the light of day (ie the school committee and the community)? Folks should email their reviews of the SI and SC directly to school committee members.
ReplyDeleteEven if the survey results are shared, I question the validity of a survey that does not allow any anon responses. I feel as though if people are afraid to speak up about their concerns about the schools (& many seem to be given all the anon traffic on this site whenever a school topic is raised & the small number of people who attend SC meetings to express concerns), then requiring people to give their names on the survey is a way of ensuring that many people will stay silent.... & maybe only show their dissatisfaction with the district by moving their children to other schools, as so many before them have done.
ReplyDeleteI feel like the requirement that people give them names on the survey is likely to skew the results to be more positive than they would be in anon survey.
My ground rule for using Cowardly Anon Nitwit is when someone presents an exceedingly strong criticism, or just downright nasty remark, without have the kahoonies to leave a name.
ReplyDelete'Kahoonies?' From the old Gaelic? For cojones?
ReplyDelete