After a quick read… According to the financial side, not having Bethlehem at this meeting was a real failure to launch this idea. No schools would be closing, which is great, but they seem to have the least to immediately gain according to study and FTS the most. Bethlehem’s logo is not even on the cover, when we should be sending them flowers if this were to work. There’s a chance regionalization could benefit the kids academically and worth a real look for all of us when thinking ten years down the line financially, but FTS & Union tied their shoelaces together at the starting line releasing the study this way.
The study shows there is no real economies of scale created in a Union/Franklin team up. The budget saving would be less than .9% for both our current yearly budgets due to existing shared service agreements. Bethlehem would really be the key to this having a measurable benefit and discussing it without them is basically a waste of time and resources. Additionally, our two towns meeting to discuss Bethlehem’s finances while they’re at back to school night is unfortunate timing and awful optics. We’d look even more disingenuous if we canceled the meeting just to staple their name to the front of the report after FTS released it this way. The results of the study are one thing, but whoever put this packet & meeting together did a terrible job of starting the relationships needed to make something like regionalization actually happen.
Also what is not included in the study is critical. What are the anticipated impacts on academic performance and bus journey times for students under the proposals? Assuming that there no additional documents that have not been released what is the plan and timeline for gathering this information that will be critical for the community to know before making a decision.