Pothole could be a good thing for town
Published on July 11th, 2007
STONEHAM, MA - State Senate Minority leader Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield) just may land a much welcome budget surprise in Stoneham’s lap, if his proposed amendment to a grant program ends up passing.
According to the Beacon Hill legislator, he recently pitched an amendment to the state’s Foundation Reserve account, an educational line-item set aside to help out financially struggling municipalities.
Better known as the pothole grant, the state budget line-item was recently funded by both the house and senate at $5.5 million for FY’08, a $1 million increase over last year’s total.
Tisei has proposed that a new qualifying category be added to Foundation Reserve that would specifically allow Stoneham to apply to the Mass. Department of Education for a piece of the $5.5 million pie.
Specifically, it would allow any municipality to apply that has over one-third of its landmass owned by the Commonwealth that does not receive a set amount of payments in lieu of taxes for the development prohibitions.
Stoneham, which is located right smack in the middle of the Fells Reservation, is one such community.
“I’m trying to look under every rock to get more money to the community,” Tisei said in a phone interview this week. “Hopefully, with the difficulty the town has been going through, this will help stabilize the community.”
“This doesn’t guarantee that [the town] will get money, but it does allow it to apply with a handful of other eligible communities,” the State Senator added. “And a lot of communities that do get this money, get it every year.”
According to Schools Supt. Dr. Les Olson, he remains hopeful that the amendment will pass through the governor’s office this week, as Tisei expects.
However, until he knows the exact figure Stoneham would receive under the grant program, if any, Olson won’t speculate where the funding would be utilized.
“I have no idea what the potential size of the grant would be. Something like that would generally be used for capital items that have not been addressed,” the superintendent said. “You would really not want to use a one-time grant for operating costs.”
According to Tisei staff member Michael Smith, even if the amendment escapes the governor’s veto pen, the exact windfall the town would receive under the budget item can’t be predicted.
However, Smith believes that the state could likely dole out a significant figure to the town due to Stoneham’s precarious budget situation.
Based upon past “pothole grants” received by the town, such as in 2004 when the district was awarded $200,000, Stoneham may do very well under the program.
“It could potentially be several hundred thousand dollars. There’s no cap on what a community could receive,” said Smith. “They [DOE officials] look at demonstrated need for funding within the community and in Stoneham, there is definitely a need.”
According to Tisei, since the town receives next to no money in exchange for the state’s custody of more than one-third of its land mass, he believes that the amendment to the Foundation Reserve account qualifications is very appropriate.
“This grant program has been in the state budget every year. Year’s ago, Stoneham was able to apply for this money and did receive funding,” the minority leader explained. “But the problem is that over the years, the language has been tightened so that Stoneham couldn’t apply.”
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