Sharon budget vote could draw record turnout amid school funding dispute

SHARON – Voters at a town meeting Friday, May 8, will decide whether to approve a town budget that includes a flat Sharon Center School spending plan that has drawn weeks of pushback from parents and residents.

Officials are anticipating a larger than average turnout, which has led them to change the venue from town hall to Sharon Center School to accommodate a larger crowd.

The Board of Finance voted Tuesday, April 28, to keep education spending flat and declined to redirect about $41,000 in out-of-town tuition back to the school, a request made by a group of parents at a heated public hearing on April 24.

The issue has exposed a divide between parents pushing to shift that revenue into the education budget and officials who argue that the town’s past accounting issues, financial constraints and state funding rules make the matter more complex than it appears.

Freddy Deknatel and Emily McGoldrick, parents of two children in Sharon Daycare, said they plan to vote against the proposed budget. “The Board of Finance seems to have been quite inflexible,” Deknatel said, reflecting on its decision not to move tuition revenues into the school budget. “Knowing many parents who either have kids in the school or whose kids would be starting in kindergarten this coming fall, we feel that we’ll vote against the budget because it’s the only step left.”

The current proposal follows a last-minute $70,000 reduction in early April that drew strong public response.

The controversial $4,165,513 budget proposal for Sharon Center School – unchanged from the current year – is now heading to a vote. It continues a years-long trend of near-zero increases and reductions, and is roughly $178,000 lower than the school’s 2020-2021 budget of $4,343,314.

The education budget, said BOF member John Hecht, has been kept flat with a 0% increase, due in part to an accounting error that was made several years ago.

“Things that should have been capitalized were expensed,” he said, referring to costs that should have been paid for through long-term capital planning by the town but were instead included in the school’s annual budget.

Hecht said the issue has been compounded by the state’s Minimum Budget Requirement, or MBR, which generally prevents municipalities from spending less on education than they did the previous year.

“We’ve been trying over the years to get that back under control,” Hecht said.

He and other members of the BOF cited the issue as a key reason for maintaining a flat budget.

The main focus of the hour-long discussion, however, focused on whether to move about $41,000 in tuition paid by families outside the district into the school’s budget. The funds currently go into the town’s Undesignated Fund.

The proposal was inspired by a flood of public support for additional school funding during a public hearing Friday, April 24. While many residents urged the board to transfer the tuition revenue to the school, the board ultimately decided to keep it in the municipal budget.

“I say we wait for the vote and see what happens,” said Hecht.

Board members said they are motivated to work with the BOE on future plans for tuition revenues, which are substantially higher this year due to more out-of-town students, as well as other areas of cooperation in preparation for subsequent budget cycles.

BOE Chair Philip O’Reilly, who was present at the meeting, later said he was “taken aback” by the decision after he believed the BOF would work with school officials to find a way to return the funds.

While he is confident that the currently proposed flat budget is sufficient to fully fund the school and its programs, O’Reilly said the tuition issue offered the two boards – which have historically had fraught relations – a step toward compromise.

“The Board of Education and the Board of Finance must find a better way to be able to work together and solve our issues,” he said.

O’Reilly urged parents to trust his experience and dedication to the school. He served as principal of SCS from 2001 to 2005 and has more than four decades in education. He also put his six children through Region One, three of whom graduated from SCS.

“I want us to be the most successful early kindergarten to eighth-grade school in Region One, and I will do everything I can to accomplish that mission,” he said.

SCS Principal Carol Tomkalski similarly urged parents to trust the school’s staff and leadership: “We are always going to do everything we can here to ensure our program is not compromised.”

BOF member Carol Flaton, who phoned into Tuesday’s meeting, posited that the school has always managed to cover costs with leftover unspent funds. “A budget is a budget,” she said, “It’s not an actual.”

Hecht reported that the school had roughly $200,000 remaining from last year’s budget. This year, the BOE calculated that it expects to have approximately $120,000 unspent for 2026-2027, though this number is a projection that is subject to the actual expenditures throughout the year.

Flaton argued that adding the $41,000 in tuition revenue to the BOE budget would simply be adding to what she described as “cushion.”

Region One Superintendent Melony Brady-Shanley, who was present at Tuesday’s meeting, said that unspent funds are not guaranteed, especially since most of the time they’re due staffing changes, which can be highly unpredictable.

Speaking several days after the meeting, she expressed the term “cushion” misrepresents the reality of school budgeting. “That is just patently false,” she said. “We have to budget based on the actual people we have in front of us.”

“We don’t go into each budget season thinking how much cushion we can sneak in,” she added.

She said that she hopes the various town organizations continue to negotiate how to work together for future budget cycles. Members of the BOE and BOF also expressed similar sentiments, and promised to develop a collaborative approach moving forward.

Going into the vote, some parents and residents say they remain uncertain.

A flyer distributed by a group calling itself “Concerned Parents of Sharon” is urging residents to vote against the proposed budget, arguing that a flat spending plan would effectively reduce resources for the school as costs rise.

Karen Rios, president of the SCS Parent-Teacher Organization, said after Tuesday’s meeting that she remains troubled by the budget debate.

“Our goal is to make sure that Sharon not only thrives in the present but also has new generations of children who grow up and say, ‘I’m proud to be from Sharon.’”

VOTE DETAILS

When: Friday, May 8

Time: 6 p.m.

Where: Sharon Center School, 80 Hilltop Road