3.    State Aid Task Force

•    Mr. Thielman reported that on Thursday, June 12, 2008, at BOS Chair Clarissa Rowe’s invitation, he attended a meeting at Town Hall regarding various Arlington-related funding requests before the Legislature.  Meeting attendees included the town’s legislative delegation, four members of the Board of Selectmen, the Town Manager and the Assistant Town Manager.  Mr. Thielman explained that he was asked if the School Committee’s top priority was funding for the Arlington Youth Consultation Center (AYCC). While he answered in the affirmative and personally concurred with the decision to push for AYCC funding, he said it occurred to him that there should be an internal School Committee process whereby the full Committee has a chance to discuss and prioritize needs before the Legislature.

•    Mr. Spangler and Ms. Sheffler agreed. Mr. Spangler said that individual School Committee members were having conversations with legislators on particular issues but it was not done with the force of a formal vote of the full School Committee.   

•    Mr. Thielman asked Mr. Sullivan what had happened with the State Aid Task Force, and Mr. Sullivan said that it had not met in a while. Mr. Sullivan agreed to try to call a meeting over the summer.  He said it would be appropriate to discuss Arlington’s ideas for changing the formula for Chapter 70 at a summer meeting.

•    Ms. Sheffler urged Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Thielman and the rest of the State Aid Task Force to simply state what it wanted changed in the Chapter 70 formula that unfairly hurt Arlington. She did not feel that the State Aid Task Force should ask ask the legislative delegation what was politically feasible or realistic. State what needs to be changed in the formula and push for it, she said.  Don’t water down the request because legislators think a change in the formula is not realistic (because they are also factoring in what their constituents in other towns they may represent want from the state). She said we should tell them what we want and let them worry about the politics.  Mr. Thielman and Mr. Spangler agreed. Mr. Sullivan said he was comfortable with this approach as well.  He, Mr. Spangler, and Mr. Thielman noted that Arlington is one of only about 17 communities in the state that are now receiving state aid below the amounts received in 2002. Arlington gets not quite 17.5% of its basic school needs funded by the state, whereas other towns get as much as 90% from the state.

•    Mr. Thielman said he saw a need for direction from the School Committee to its representatives on the State Aid Task Force, Denise Burns and himself.  He would like to see a process in which the State Aid Task Force discussed and enumerated the Town’s legislative priorities, including School Department priorities, and those priorities (at least as they relate to the schools) were discussed and approved by the full School Committee. Mr. Thielman said he understood that the delegation and each individual Representative or Senator had the right to advocate for earmarks and projects that he felt were in the best interest of the town and the most politically feasible. This “push back” did not preclude a vote on legislative priorities by the full School Committee, however. 

•    Mr. Spangler and Ms. Sheffler said they agreed with this approach.