Advisory committee urges Select Board to seek signed agreement, demand payment from Phillipston for Narragansett regional school debt

The Templeton Advisory Committee voted to recommend the Select Board place a discussion and possible vote on its agenda to pursue a signed regional-school agreement with the town of Phillipston and to ask town counsel to send a demand letter if necessary.

Committee members said Phillipston has not signed the regional-agreement governing the new elementary school at the Templeton Center site and that, as a result, Templeton taxpayers have carried debt service that advisory members allege should have been shared. Committee members discussed bond figures, historical votes and the mechanics of regional school debt allocations.

During the discussion, committee members estimated the original Phillipston share of the school bond principal at roughly $3.15 million (about 15% of an original $21 million figure discussed in the meeting) and offered a rough back-of-envelope estimate that, over several years, unpaid principal-plus-interest could total in the high hundreds of thousands of dollars. Members emphasized those figures were preliminary and said town finance officials and town counsel should produce an accurate accounting.

The committee asked the Select Board to put the item on an agenda within a short timeframe and recommended a two-step approach: (1) ask town counsel to demand that Phillipston execute the regional agreement; (2) once the agreement is signed or acknowledged, pursue recovery or a negotiated settlement for amounts owed based on the agreement and verified accounting. Committee members discussed legal doctrines such as quantum meruit (raised in the meeting) as a possible avenue for recovery but emphasized they were not making legal conclusions and that town counsel should advise the Select Board on legal strategy.

Committee members also discussed operational details including who currently maintains and pays for building maintenance, how bond payments are structured, and possible mechanisms the school committee or district might use to assume or reassign payments. The committee did not direct a specific legal remedy; it recommended the Select Board seek formal consideration and instruct town counsel to draft a demand as appropriate.

The motion to recommend the Select Board place the item on its agenda and to ask town counsel to send a demand letter passed by voice vote; committee members recorded a unanimous vote in favor.