Town and school nearing end of budget debates, but no con-solidation agreement signed yet
BY ABBY FOX

The school committee and town council wrangled Monday night with how much should be taken out of the school’s health care fund balance with West Bay collaborative. On Monday, May 12, the town is expected to vote on the schools’ $1.4 million budget re-quest it should have, along with the rest of the budget, for June’s Financial Town Meeting.

So this week, the council devoted two nights to making to budget preparation. Town Manager Bill Sequino’s proposal was to take $250,000 out of the West Bay fund, letting the school district keep $500,000 -- the number the town’s health care consultant Joe Cardello has said is a rea-sonable, necessary amount.  The committee’s response was that $500,000 would cover just the bare minimum; and with school department claims up this year – by $75,000 in the past two months – the schools are hesitant to take out so much for the sake of fiscal restraint.  There was plenty of back and forth for several minutes.

Finance Director Tom Mattos said “you don’t need that much money in there,” while school committee member Jean Ann Guliano responded that having a surplus helps keep the rates low, and Council President Michael Isaacs said, “I’d rather keep the money myself, as a tax payer” than give money to the schools that they may not need.
Cutting back on West Bay Collaborative is a “gamble,” said Sue Cienki, school chair, while Mattos said it wasn’t.
Threading the conversation was information about the col-laborative, which the school committee said involves administrative fees of $38 per month, the second lowest in the state. “West Bay Collaborative has really worked out fabulously for us,” Cienki said afterward.

The discussion was polite but the undercurrent had a light tone of condescension toward the school committee and administrators. Sequino questioned MaryAnne Crawford, the schools’ director of administra-tion, whether she had reported all her health care data on time to the town and scolded Cienki for saying that consolidating lawn care and other services was in fact a “cut.” Isaacs told Guli-ano he couldn’t buy into “all of your graphs, Jean Ann,” from a previous meeting, when she argued the schools deserved to keep a baseline amount to ensure maximum funding in future years.

A new twist was thrown into the conversation when Matt Oliverio, the schools’ attorney, said one problem with any school-town consolidation he wanted “on the table was the po-tential for having unexpected expenses in labor disputes. “What if we have to pay a griev-ance?” he asked.  In the end, the mood was mel-low enough for Sequino to offer cutting only half of $250,000 from West Bay, or $125,000, and councilor Mark Schwager said he understood that the schools were trying to “manage risk” in figuring out the health care fund.

The school committee reported to the town updated financials. The schools have saved $198,000 from the new teacher contract, as well as $68,000 in retirees. But there are several unanticipated expenses, such as $50,000 in health care for retir-ees, $30,000 for more days needed in the extended school year program, $50,000 more in out–of-district-tuition and $85,000 for a first grade teacher’s salary and health care.The added expenses mean a total of nearly $120,000 that the school didn’t anticipate before, Cienki said. Recycling one spontaneous moment in the middle of dry budget talk was Public Works Director Joe Duarte’s remark that the schools have had a “horrible” record of recycling until recently.
“It wasn’t documented they were tipping any recyclables,” until a few months ago, con-firmed Ray Pazzullo, assistant town engineer, the next day.  “We know they’re doing it now and we know it’s getting tipped at the landfill,” Pazzullo said, since the school has switched contractors and this school year, signed on to Mega, the town’s.

Last year, the town was over the state-mandated waste cap by 426 tons, Pazzullo said.
“That only represents maybe three weeks of tipping,” he said. “This year, we’re quite a bit un-der. Our cap is 5,645 tons for this fiscal year and we should be around 5,000. We have two more months to go, May and June.”
The lower trash rate is due to more recycling by both town and schools, he said.
 “We’ve been monitoring our trash a little more closely and recycling considerably more than we ever have,” said Facili-ties Director Bob Wilmarth, singling out Cole Middle School, Meadowbrook Farms, Hanaford and finally, Eldredge.
“The parents are really excited about it; the kids are really ex-cited about it,” he said.
The town is relieved that the bids for collecting trash are down $120,000 less than the $675,000 the public works de-partment budgeted. The trash collection bid winners haven’t been finalized yet.