Saugus board debates voke school tuition

SAUGUS – Selectman Michael Kelleher is not ready to give up on the idea of pushing the state to lower the town’s tuition payment for the Northeast Metropolitan Technical School.Selectmen voted Tuesday to meet with the state delegation to explore exactly what it would take to revisit the formula that decidedly does not favor Saugus.According to Selectman Peter Rossetti, who also sits on the School Committee for the vocational school, he said the change would take nothing short of revamping education reform.Rossetti said the tuition formula was set along with Education Reform in 1993. The change came to give communities that were considered poor a break. At the time, Saugus was considered one of the well-to-do communities. While that may no longer be true because financial circumstances have changed, the formula hasn’t.Rossetti said the formula is in part based on growth and the numbers the state uses to determine tuition come from the town’s offices. Due to Saugus’ growth numbers, the town, on paper, still appears to be wealthy in the state’s eyes.Saugus pays just over $2 million to send 145 students to the vocational school, but the board learned just two weeks ago that number would be going up by $240,000 to accommodate sending another 16 students to the Wakefield school. On the other end of the spectrum is Chelsea, which last year paid roughly $4,000 to sent 205 students.”There has to be something we can do,” Kelleher said. “I hear ‘You have to change state law,’ well maybe that is what has to happen.”Selectman Stephen Horlick sided with Kelleher. Horlick argued that people thought getting the unions to sign onto joining the state’s healthcare program would be difficult, if not impossible, but it happened.Selectman Stephen Castinetti, however, pointed out an obvious roadblock.”The problem with us pushing one way is you’re going to have other communities pushing the other way,” he said.Saugus pays more per student than roughly two-thirds of towns sending students to the vocational school. Horlick suggested they find out which other communities were also struggling and invite them to join them in their quest.”You don’t understand,” Rossetti countered. “It’s not just the formula for Saugus, it’s the whole state.”He also said his colleagues need to consider the fact members of the delegation represent more than one community like Rep. Kathi-Anne Reinstein. While Reinstein represents a small portion of Saugus, she represents a big chunk of Chelsea and Revere, which the formula favors.Kelleher scoffed at Rossetti’s suggestion that the problem was unrepairable.”I don’t need ed reform to fix the formula,” he said adding, “You can’t say something is broken but not fix it because it’s hard. We need to fix it.”