Looking at the Waterville Central School District’s rental agreement with Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES, WCS officials question whether it’s a fair one for the District.
During a special WCS Board of Education meeting last week, OHM BOCES Board member Russ Stewart - a former longtime member of the Waterville Board of Education - listened to a rundown of what WCS provides for BOCES.
WCS Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Spring outlined the classrooms, office space and other services WCS provides.
At Memorial Park School WCS rents five classrooms and at the Junior-Senior High rents four classrooms.
BOCES uses them to run programs for 24 students in each building.
Spring said in addition to the classrooms, the District provides four offices at MPS and three other rooms at the secondary school that are not charged rent.
WCS is also absorbing the cost of instruction for those non-WCS students, as they attend art and music classes at MPS and various programs at the Junior-Senior that are equivalent to six full-time students, Spring said.
Waterville also provides a Distance Learning classroom where the instructor will teach classes that do not include WCS students, she said.
Stewart said as a BOCES Board member he advocated for a 1 to 1.5 percent increase in rental fees for all districts that provide space.
However, the BOCES Board decided to keep the flat rate, which has been the same for a number of years.
Stewart cited the Westmoreland School District, which does not rent rooms to BOCES.
“They rent rooms to other organizations that provide programs,’’ he said, “at a higher payment that what you are getting from BOCES.’’
BOCES does not have enough space at their facilities, Stewart said, so needs to find outside places to use.
He urged WCS administrators and Board members to consider renting to private agencies.
“Waterville can start pushing BOCES to do the ...
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