Dudley’s funding options for local Norfolk School student

Janet Stoica
Patriot Correspondent

At Monday night’s Dudley Selectmen’s Meeting, discussion regarding how to fund the $33,334  for tuition and transportation for a local student’s out-of-town school choice focused on removing money from 10 reserve accounts in order to pay the cost.

The reserve accounts that would be reduced to a zero balance include: Payment to Land Owners original balance $1,000; Complete/Rehab Walden Cemetery original balance $2,155.70; GASB 45 original balance $2,500; and Cleanup original balance $1,611.10. Additional town accounts would be reduced as follows: Compensated Absence -$6,230.69; Handicapped Parking Fine

-$2,327.18; Account Software -$3,348.23; Landfill Monitoring -$5,000; Archival Restoration -$1,200; and Recertification 2015 by -$5,000.  Also, the revolving account for Composting would be reduced to zero (originally $1,731.49). The total amount from these funding options is $32,104.39 leaving another $1,239.61 that must be assigned to arrive at the $33,334 figure.

Selectman Paul Joseph asked Town Administrator Jankowski “can these departments function with the funds being transferred?” to which Mr. Jankowski replied “yes, but not as efficiently.”  Selectman Joseph then stated “this doesn’t make sense that the elderly population must go without streetlights in order to fund the student tuition.”