Barre Select Board Approves 37-Article Warrant, Clashes With School Officials Over Budget

BARRE -- May 20, 2019, Barre Select Board confronts Quabbin Regional School District over a $35 million budget that consumes nearly 60 percent of town spending. Quabbin's business manager and a school committee representative walked the board through the district's three-revenue funding model at the May 20 meeting, but the session turned contentious when a board member argued that Barre's assessment runs roughly $2.5 million above the state-calculated minimum and that every town department capital request was denied at the prior year's Town Meeting. "We are at a point every year when we get to the budget we're scrounging to make things fit," one member said. A letter from Hubbardston's Finance Committee, also discussed, called an 8.8 percent assessment increase unsupportable and asked for a figure at or below 6 percent. The board unanimously approved a 37-article Town Meeting warrant for the June 18 annual meeting, including three competing marijuana zoning bylaws and a new water department well-drilling article.