State bill takes next step forward
By Caitlyn Kelleher JOURNAL REPORTER

A statewide bill that could make getting capital funding for regional schools a bit easier took a step forward this week.

The bill - House 586 - will allow towns like Ashburnham and Westminster to ask voters to approve one year overrides of Proposition 2 ½, to allow capital exclusions for the regional school district. Town and school officials want to be able to do this so that the proposed capital maintenance plan can continue.

Ellen Holmes, an Ashburnham-Westminster Regional Committee member and the chair of the Massachusetts Association of School Committee's Regional Schools Committee, is one of the proponents of the bill.

"We have now climbed a huge hurdle," she said.

The fact that regional school districts were not allowed to do such a capital exclusion was discovered by the Department of Revenue last year after Ashburnham voters approved the measure. The DOR permitted the action for one year because such financing is allowed by cities and non-regional school district.

The bill has been expedited through the process in hopes it will pass before the end of the fiscal year, allowing both Westminster and Ashburnham to fund $150,000 of the school district's capital plan through this method.

"You don't usually have bills moving at the pass this one is moving," Holmes said.

She said the work state Rep. Robert Rice and state Sen. Robert Antonioni did to get the bill a hearing was key. She, along with the Legislative proponents of the bill testified before the Joint Committee on Education as did Ashburnham Selectman Jonathan Dennehy and Ashburnham-Westminster Superintendent of Schools Michael Zapantis.

The bill will be reviewed the Ways and Means Committee, and then have to go through three readings in each the House and the Senate.

"That could happen very fast or it could take weeks or months," Holmes said.