By unanimous vote, the School Committee this week extended Harvard’s education contract with Devens for an additional five years. The current contract was set to expire in July 2015 but now will remain in effect until 2020.
” I just thought that Harvard was in a very strong position … and I hope [the school committee members] understand the downside risk.”
—Ron Ricci, selectman
Harvard receives about $1.2 million for educating some 80 students from Devens this school year, according to Interim Superintendent Joe Connelly. MassDevelopment pays the district about $14,500 for each Devens student. This amount equals Harvard’s average cost per pupil, as calculated by the state. Without those funds, Connelly said, Harvard would have faced the need to lay off a significant number of teachers during the recent recession, as many other districts did.
School Committee member Bob Sullebarger summed up the board’s reasoning when he said, “This relationship [with Devens] is critical to us maintaining a level of adequate scale in our district in a time of declining enrollment. And scale is what helps us defend the rich curriculum we provide, which underpins the excellent reputation of our district. The bottom line is, they need us, and we need them.”
‘A lot of push-back’
Under the terms of the five-year extension, which was approved at a special School Committee meeting on June 12, MassDevelopment will continue to pay the full per-pupil cost for each Devens student as well as the full cost for any Devens students who need out-of-district placements to meet their special educational needs. The major change in the extended contract is that MassDevelopment will no longer pay extra (above the $14,500) for students whose special education needs can be met within the Harvard school district.
Although the vote to extend the contract was unanimous, School Committee members said that they had faced “a lot of push-back” over the decision since the issue first arose publicly at their regular meeting on Monday, June 9. At that meeting, Selectman Ron Ricci urged them to delay their decision until they had consulted with several other town boards and employees.
Benefits versus risks
At the Thursday meeting, opposition to the proposed extension was expressed by Finance Director Lorraine Leonard. Leonard judged that the in-house special education expenses posed too big a risk for Harvard. After learning of the proposed extension, Leonard developed a counter-proposal that would, in effect, have capped Harvard’s liability for in-house special ed costs at $10,000 per student. But MassDevelopment rejected that idea Wednesday afternoon.
In a phone call with the Press after the School Committee’s decision, Ricci said the vote was not what he would have done, but the decision was for the School Committee members to make. “I just thought Harvard was in a very strong position,” Ricci said, “… and I hope they [the School Committee members] understand the downside risk.”
Both Connelly and School Committee Chairwoman SusanMary Redinger argued that the overall benefits of the contract extension outweighed the risks of increased special education costs. Connelly said that the risk might be between $100,000 and $150,000, whereas the worth of the contract could rise to $1.6 million if the number of Devens students increases to 100 over the next five years. Connelly also noted that the percentage of students in Harvard who have individualized education programs (IEPs) is about the same as the average for Massachusetts as a whole.
Respecting both sides
Connelly called the compromise over special education costs “an attempt to respect both sides” in the negotiations.
Redinger pointed out that, without the extension, the contract would be open for bidding in a year. She noted that Ayer-Shirley is interested in bidding on the contract and that Harvard might come to the same terms–or worse–in a contested bidding process. The extension, on the other hand, allows for longer-term budget planning, she said.
Connelly noted that the initial stages of negotiations over the contract extension were kept confidential at the request of MassDevelopment’s executive vice-president of Devens operations, George Ramirez, to avoid upsetting other towns that might be interested in the contract.
