Saugus board seeks voke tuition input by legislature

SAUGUS – Instead of waiting for the legislature to come to them, Selectman Michael Kelleher wants to take the fight to lower the town’s Northeast Metropolitan Vocational School tuition to the State House.Kelleher and Selectman Peter Rossetti, who sits on the vocational school’s School Committee, got into a heated exchange during Tuesday’s meeting over the tuition issue. Kelleher is trying to mount a statewide campaign to have state officials revisit the formula that determines how much it costs cities and towns to send students to their respective vocational schools.In Saugus, it costs just more than $2 million to educate 145 students, which is considerably higher than two-thirds of the other communities that send students to the Wakefield campus.The tuition formula was set when Education Reform swept in 1993. The formula was altered to give a break to communities that, at the time, were considered poor. While time and circumstances have changed, the formula has not. But Kelleher is determined to change that.Since there are communities such as Chelsea that benefit from the formula, Kelleher said he realizes that working through the state delegation is not the way to get things changed.”I think we have to get behind this,” he said. “That’s why I would like to meet with the delegation at the State House and not here.”Kelleher said he would like to round up all the communities across the commonwealth that feel the same way and bring them into the meeting as well.Kelleher asked Town Manager Andrew Bisignani what he had ferreted out in discussions with other mayors and town managers.”There seems to be a more concerted effort to reject the budget,” he said. “My recommendation is to reject it. I believe there are enough other cities and towns that will reject it, which will force it back to the voke school to be reconsidered.”Rossetti said he thought it was curious that Bisignani was recommending the town reject a budget that had yet to be decided.”We don’t have a budget yet,” he said.Kelleher said it didn’t matter because he would reject any budget the school put forth on the basis that it used what he calls the outdated formula to determine tuition.Rossetti said the board should wait until there is an actual budget to debate but Kelleher cut him off. After yielding his floor time to Rossetti briefly, Kelleher asked his colleague not to further interrupt him.”I’m not going to roll over and play dead on a budget that has a public relations person, two vice principals, a principal and a superintendent,” he said. “You’re splitting hairs, there is a budget on the table.”He also argued that even if the budget hasn’t been voted, the town knows its tuition is going up over last year because 16 additional students were accepted to the school this year.Chairman Donald Wong tried to smooth ruffled feathers but Kelleher told Rossetti he needed to stop taking that attack on the vocational school personally.He said he believes there is momentum for getting the formula changed and he plans to run with it.”We won’t get this changed with the state delegation but we will get it done,” he said. “I guarantee it will change.”Rep. Mark Falzone said he didn’t disagree with Kelleher and it’s a fight he’s been at for several years.”But the deck is stacked against us,” he said.He said he believes the ultimate solution will require a pot of money so the state can pick up some of the financial ground some communities will lose under what he hopes would be a new more equitable formula.