RUHS, RTCC Budgets
Win Easy Approval

By Sandy Cooch

In a tiny turnout, but by three-to-one margins, voters in Braintree, Brookfield, and Randolph on Tuesday approved proposed 2007-08 budgets for the high school and technical center. Voters also approved an article to place $148,560 in surplus funds from the 2005-06 Randolph Union High School budget in a building maintenance fund.

The RUHS budget of $7.78-million was okayed 332-131, and a Randolph Technical Career Center budget of $2.54 million was passed in an almost identical 335-128 vote.

The approval rating on the building fund request was slightly more emphatic, 390-94.

Voter turnout was low: Braintree had 9.35% of its registered voters casting ballots, with 8.85% in Randolph, and 8.59% in Brookfield.

The total of 462 voters represents a slight drop from last February, when about 500 people voted—and rejected—both the RUHS and RTCC budgets. The turnout in late March, 2006, when the two budgets were revoted and approved, was about 570 voters.

This week, Orange Southwest Supt. Brent Kay said he was thankful that voters supported the budgets, especially given district-wide efforts to keep costs down. The RUHS budget had a 1.14% increase, while the RTCC increase was just under 2%.

However, Kay confessed he was disappointed in the small turnout.

"I don’t know how to say this," he said. "It’s the largest expenditure in the region, and so few seem interested."

He was hopeful, Kay indicated, that the school budgets were "such a good package that people felt at ease."

"But I am thrilled that people spoke with such a majority," he added.

Kay also observed that this year marked the first time, in his tenure here, that the high school budget passed by the same margin as the technical center’s. Previously, RTCC’s budget had been consistently approved by wider margins.

"This is a sign of how much improvement the high school has gone through," Kay commented. "They’ve made huge improvements in the last five years."

Voters in the three OSSU towns will consider their elementary school budgets on Town Meeting Day, March 6.

Randolph’s proposed elementary budget is down by almost 1%; Brookfield’s is down by more than 4%; and Braintree’s is essentially level-funded, with an increase of one-tenth of 1%.

__________