SAUGUS ― Town Meeting members voted against funding a new Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational High School (Northeast Metro Tech); soon, residents will have their say.
After Town Meeting members voted against funding Northeast Metro Tech in a special session, the vote will now go to the town, which will have the opportunity to weigh in at a later date.
Funding amounts for the new school project would be evenly distributed across all 12 communities eligible to send their students to the school, which includes Saugus.
The Finance Committee met on Oct. 13 to view the financial standing of the requested funds for the construction of the new Northeast Metro Tech.
Chairman of the Finance Committee Kenneth DePatto spoke for the committee during the special Town Meeting on Monday. He told Town Meeting members that the Finance Committee was concerned about where the town would find the funding.
“At that time (Oct 13.), the vote was to not recommend Article Two (Northeast Metro Tech funding) because there was not an identifiable source of funding,” he said.
In practice, this means that if a Prop 2 ½ override, or debt exclusion — a temporary increase in property taxes for the purpose of funding capital projects — was initiated and failed, then the money would have to come from somewhere in the town. According to DePatto, this would spell major budget cuts across the board, and could potentially affect the town’s police, fire, and school budgets.
“Those three budgets would take a significant hit in order for us to be able to pay this debt service with the absence of a debt exclusion,” said DePatto.
Saugus Town Meeting members had the opportunity to vote on if they chose to stand with the Finance Committee’s recommendation for the town or not.
Town Moderator Stephen Doherty explained to Town Meeting members that in order for a financial article to come before the Town Meeting, it has to receive a recommendation from the Finance Committee.
“Every article that comes before us, if it’s a financial article, then it requires a recommendation from the Finance Committee; that recommendation from the Finance Committee then becomes the actual article we are voting on,” said Doherty.
DePatto said that the Finance Committee hoped that the members would support their recommendation “with hopes that we can get a debt exclusion in front of the people, let them vote on it, and go from there.
“Hopefully, they support it,” he added.
And they did, 37-6.
After the Town Meeting vote, the article will now go to a special election where the residents of Saugus can cast their ballots on funding the school with a debt exclusion. A date has not yet been set.
