The Opinionator

Whom Do You Throw Overboard?

Whom Do You Throw Overboard?

The recent experience of a district meeting by the citizens of Dennis and Yarmouth give cause to think about regionalization and the ramifications of that decision dozens of years ago.

When two towns vote to regionalize they give up some of their municipal autonomy in favor of the advantages that come to it by getting together.  It's a partnership for better or for worse, it's a marriage, a real legal commitment to each other.

Residents of the school district may fail to grasp the ramifications of this decision to get married. When they do this both towns are rewarded with institutional economies of scale such as a single curriculum, a single central office governing facility and the ability and responsibility of sharing just about everything else. They have also received millions of dollars in extra state aid to education, offered by the Commonwealth to get towns to regionalize and share resources.

Sometimes people can't believe that residents of one town have the authority to make decisions which affect the pocketbooks of the residents of another town.  They assume their selectmen are the ultimate governing authority and can't believe that things go on over which the selectmen have no control.

They can't believe that school committees have as much authorities as selectmen and that a school district is not town "A" nor town "B" but a third political entity as different from the two member towns of a region as from some other town miles away.

When we had the district meeting I read one letter to the editor written by a resident who was amazed that the school committee had the final word on the size of its budget, regardless of the decision of any town meeting in any town or even any district meeting  or election.  The writer asks, "How can that happen in a democracy?"  The answer is that our democracy believes that some things, some issues, are so important they must be protected from the vicissitudes which can befall a moment at a town or district meeting.

They must be protected from the momentary tyranny of the majority.

These battles between member towns and regional school districts will go on for a long time given the constraints on taxes imposed 25 years ago with the passage of Proposition 2 and ½. 

With energy costs growing in leaps and bounds, insurance premiums always creeping upward, general inflation doing its thing, and labor unions and management negotiating even tiny annual raises for employees, it becomes virtually impossible to govern a whole and complete town, i.e.: schools, police, fire, libraries, highways, etc. inside the boundaries of Proposition 2 and ½ .   For today's Massachusetts department heads, it's like being the captain of a lifeboat afloat in an angry sea and having to decide every year whom to throw overboard.