School Study Group Sees Little Progress

Task Force Charged with Fiscal Probe of Up-Island Regional School
District Hits One Roadblock After Another

By IAN FEIN

A study group charged with evaluating the finances of the Up-Island
Regional School District hit yet another snag this week, as the deadline
for consultant proposals came and went without a single response.

The financial analysis was supposed to be ready for annual town
meetings in April - but that timeline now appears well out of
reach.

"It's certainly in doubt," said West Tisbury
resident Dick Mezger, co-chairman of the task force that authored the
request for proposals (RFP). "Right now we're operating in a
bit of stunned disappointment. I guess we'll just regroup and try
to figure out where to go next."

The study arose out of a long-running debate about the fairness of
the cost-sharing formula in the small up-Island district, which includes
West Tisbury, Chilmark and Aquinnah. Arguing that West Tisbury carries
an unfair share of the financial burden, the town finance committee
authored an article at last year's annual town meeting asking
residents to withdraw from the district.

Voters opted for the task force study instead - hoping to
secure an independent financial analysis that might shed some light on
the situation.

Nine months later, no useful information is anywhere in sight.

The task force - made up of three appointed members from each
up-Island town - will hold a meeting on Wednesday to discuss its
next course of action.

"I guess the best thing for us to do is come up with some
alternatives to pursue - whether it's reworking the RFP or
reposting in hopes that others might see it," said task force
co-chairman Janet Weidner of Chilmark. "And I guess doing nothing
is another alternative. But I don't believe it's really our
decision; we have to go back to the selectmen in each town and they have
to decide."

West Tisbury selectman John Early - who first proposed the
task force study last April and helped shepherd the RFP through a
political tug-of-war with Chilmark last month - said the next step
is to find out why there were no responses.

"The question is: was the task too daunting, the money not
enough, or both?" Mr. Early said.

West Tisbury executive secretary Jennifer Rand said she sent out
eight RFPs to interested parties. Task force members plan to contact the
consultants who received the RFP, and ask them why they decided not to
bite.

"We intend to do whatever we can to find out why we
didn't get responses, and see if there's anything we can do
to remedy their concerns," Mr. Mezger said.

If it is a matter of money, finding additional funds for the study
will likely be a struggle.

West Tisbury voters approved funding for the consultant at a special
town meeting last October, but only after the article was amended on the
floor by Mr. Early to limit the town's contribution to $12,000.
Chilmark selectmen agreed to pay the consultant $10,000, and
cash-strapped Aquinnah pitched in another $3,000 - putting the
total cost of the study at no more than $25,000.

Mr. Early said this week that if the consultants indicated they
needed more money, he would lead an effort to raise additional funds.

"This town expressed an interest to find this information, and
I think we have an obligation to keep trying," Mr. Early said.
"I'm willing to do whatever's responsive to the needs
of the town - short of funding it myself."

Mrs. Weidner thinks the solution might be to scale back the scope of
the study.

"At this point I don't think it would be possible to get
everything done that we wanted to by April," she said. "But
there are six tasks in the RFP, and it's possible that we could
ask someone to look at three."

Any changes to the RFP - including funding and scope -
needs approval from selectmen in each up-Island town, and that would
further delay any potential study.

Mr. Mezger said this week that the demanding timeline for the study
may have been what kept consultants away.

"By trying to get the information back in time for annual town
meeting, we may have set a schedule that frightened them away," he
said. "Obviously we were trying our darnedest to adhere to the
schedule, even though our process started two months late and we took
another month hit while we waited for selectmen to figure out exactly
what they wanted in the RFP. Maybe we got ourselves into a situation
where we just couldn't make the time."

West Tisbury finance committee members expressed little surprise
that the up-Island district study is still off-track.

"We're right where we thought we would be," said
chairman Sharon Estrella.

Two weeks ago up-Island district officials presented their budget
for the next fiscal year to West Tisbury selectmen and finance committee
members.

While total assessments are down a quarter of a per cent from this
year's budget, West Tisbury's share will actually go up
almost four per cent, to more than $5 million.

The finance committee meets next Tuesday, and more than one member
said they will certainly discuss authoring another article to have the
town withdraw from the district. The deadline for submitting annual town
meeting articles in West Tisbury is Feb. 15.