Marshfield Select Board Splits 2-1 on School Revenue Deal

Marshfield's Select Board voted 2-1 Monday to approve a new revenue-sharing agreement with the school district, over the objection of a member who wanted an efficiency study first, and the School Committee followed with a unanimous vote the next night. Select Board Chair Rick Smith read the agreement aloud before the vote, part of a broader pledge not to seek a new property tax override.

"The share that shall be allocated to MPS will be equivalent to 68.5% for use in its annual budget," Smith said, referring to the district's share of town revenue left after shared costs like debt service, insurance and pension obligations.

During discussion, Kelley said a recall petition filed against him in the spring, led by School Committee Chair Sean Costello and Vice Chair Lara Brait, left him skeptical of the district's finances.

"I think we need to do an efficiency study including the schools," Kelley said. "I'm not going to vote to hand out any monies unless there's a complete review of their budget line items and the way they operate." Smith responded that the agreement does not increase school funding beyond what the town already approves. He pointed to a section requiring performance audits of every town department, including the schools, as the answer to Kelley's concern.

"This structure does not allocate them any more than what has already been approved by the town," Smith said. Board member Chris Rohland voted with Smith, calling the agreement a clear statement of what the schools are entitled to under the town's existing budget process. He called the no-override pledge ambitious given how unpredictable town finances can be, but said he backed its spirit.

"It's just outlining exactly what they are entitled to as the schools and just laying it out for the people in the town to understand how we have our revenue sharing in position," Rohland said.

Board member Eric Kelley cast the dissenting vote, arguing the town should not commit more money to the schools without a line-by-line budget review. Kelley asked why South Shore Regional Vocational Technical High School was carved out of the calculation as a shared cost; Smith said the exemption was meant "to try to avoid a SSVT override in the future through this MOU."

Kelley also pressed Smith on how the 68.5% figure itself was set. Smith said he had reviewed historical and currently approved school budgets with town finance staff; asked whether that meant basing the number on past budgets, he replied, "Conservatively, yes." "I think that's a big mistake in itself right there," Kelley said.

During public comment earlier in the meeting, a resident asked why the board was preparing to vote on a memorandum that had not yet been posted publicly. The board did not respond directly; Smith read the terms aloud in public for the first time later in the meeting, just before the vote.

Formal revenue-sharing arrangements between town and school budgets are not unique to Marshfield. Lexington has used a similar model for decades, splitting new town revenue 74% to schools and 26% to municipal government through an annual joint budget process. Rockland's town financial policy documents a 70/30 split with its school department, and Hingham adopted its own memorandum of understanding between its select board and school committee following a 2023 override vote.

The School Committee took up its side the following night, with the chair thanking Smith, Rohland and former interim Town Administrator Peter Morin for their work, and welcoming new Town Administrator Ted Langill to the process. Superintendent Dr. Patrick Sullivan called the agreement a source of stability heading into an uncertain budget year.

"It's so important in these uneasy financial times to have predictability and to have that security of knowing exactly what the revenue share agreement will be, what our fixed cost agreements will be," Sullivan said. Assistant Superintendent of Business and Finance Tom Miller told the committee the new terms closely mirror an agreement struck roughly 13 years ago, before it lapsed. That earlier version recalculated the district's share periodically against a rolling three-year budget average rather than fixing it at a set rate.

"The agreement after the shared cost as defined here would be that 68.5% of the remaining funds would be directed to the school department," Miller told the committee.

School Committee member Ms. Stetson asked whether the new memorandum differed significantly from the old one. Miller told her the central change was locking in a fixed percentage rather than recalculating one against a moving budget average each year.

"It's about predictability," Miller said. "It's about being equitable for both sides."

The School Committee approved the memorandum 4-0. Lara Brait was not present for the vote.