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Schools

Mansfield's Southeastern Price to Rise

Voke superindendent says cost will be increasing for the town.

Mansfield's assessment for the Southeastern Regional Technical School for the coming year is 2.77 percent more than last year, at $391,216, but there are two fewer students expected.

Such are the vagaries of the technical school budget where the exact figures assessed to each member community can usually be more only roughly estimated, and sometimes correspond unevenly to the numbers of students involved.

Southeastern Regional Superintendent Louis Lopes recently told selectmen of the increase. In the eight-town district. Mansfield's enrollment is about at the center of the pack at 43 students, with Brockton leading at 811 students, and Sharon bringing up the rear at 17.

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The district includes Brockton, East Bridgewater, Easton, Foxboro, Mansfield, Norton, Sharon, Stoughton and West Bridgewater.

Norton will be paying 4.89 percent less than last year with 12 fewer students enrolling. The town will send 122 students off to Easton for high school and will pay a total of $1,098,468 to the district.

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The base tuition per student district-wide is $14,737.

Lopes explained the regional high school will be losing no positions next year, holding at basically the same numbers of teachers they have had for the last three years. The school will realize a 1.9 percent raise in salaries, while health costs are expected to increase by 10 to 12 percent for 2012.

Transportation costs have also risen by $113,961 since FY 11, or 11.73 percent, for a total of $1,085,505. The increase is fueled by higher prices in insurance, gasoline and the replacement of one bus. Lopes said the district will use $595,376 in state transportation reimbursement to offset increases to districts resulting from the higher costs.

Southeastern's total budget for 2012 is expected to be $21,394,145, a 4.68 percent increase over 2011, with a student body of 1,343. Each of the member communities will endorse its individual assessment as part of the spring town meeting.

The 45-year-old school is in the final stages of a building project expected to cost $30 million, but the state school building assistance board will reimburse the district for 80-percent of the cost of the project, and Lopes said the member communities will not be assessed extra for the improvements.

 The 45-year-old school is in the final stages of a building project expected to cost $30 million, but the state school building assistance board will reimburse the district for 80-percent of the cost of the project. Lopes said the member communities won't be assessed extra for the improvements.

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