To the editor:
At this time of year the town elections bring out many voices, which is the great part of our open society and the election process. Having read many of the opinion pieces over the past few weeks and the comments on social media, there seems to be a blurring of the lines between the responsibilities of the Select Board and the School Committee. They are independently elected board by the citizens of Lynnfield and have two distinctly different charters.
The School Committee is responsible for setting school policies, developing budgets, hiring school teachers and administrative staff, and negotiating salaries with the teacher association and individual administrators, to name a few. They all work hard and volunteer their time and talents. We should all be grateful to them for that. They bring their annual budget request to the Select Board and the Finance Committee where it is considered along with all the other town budget requests. A dauting task for sure. The Select Board is tasked with managing all the town’s needs within the budget process and limitations. This requires a balanced and disciplined process without bias.
Some comments in these opinion articles and social-media posts seem to insinuate that there is a need for new members on the Select Board that are more in tune with the demographics of the town, specifically having school-age children, and thus would be more accommodating to the school system. That would be a possible argument for a school Committee position but not an unbiased Select Board role. Again, two distinctly different charters. It has been my experience through many Town Meetings over the years that the vast majority of our citizens support articles and expenditures that are needed to keep our schools the quality product they are and have been. They, like myself, have had children go through the school system and fully understand the value it provides and support measures to continue it at a high level. The Select Board, past and present, has always provided what is needed for our schools. That does not mean unlimited funds and overrides but providing what is truly needed while maintaining a fiscal balance and discipline.
To follow the logic that a Select Board member should have school-age children in order to be better able to relate to the needs of the school, should they also have experience in law enforcement and fire protection in order to plan and support those groups, or maintenance experience to work with the DPW? Management is far better as an unemotional process. The Select Board is tasked with managing a wide variety of areas and groups within the town beyond the schools. They have to be even-handed regarding budgets to provide needed resources across several areas of need. Yes, the schools are critically important and there is less then zero evidence that it has not been accommodated now or in the past. Given some of the issues of the past year it would seem reasonable that work is done to address these areas in the school system before asking the town for increases beyond a normal annual increases. Simply throwing money at a problem is rarely the best first step as we see regularly on the federal level. More often, it will only increase existing dysfunctions. An effort has to be made to look at ways to improve problems in a system and ensure the town tax dollars are being spend wisely and efficiently for all areas of town services.
To suggest Joe Connell as a Select Board member is out of touch on school issues because he has only a senior remaining in the school system is hard to square given what he has done for the Lynnfield schools. As the chair of the Strategic Planning Committee, Joe identified the demographic change in town and the anticipated increase in school age children that would require additional classrooms and facilities in the two elementary schools in order to keep class sizes at the 18-22 target. He went to the then-superintendent, Jane Trembly, to discuss his concerns and develop a plan. He then joined the School Expansion Committee and helped manage the project which came in on time and under budget.
Joe is also on the committee for the new Town Hall and safety building. Due to the Select Board’s proper and prudent financial management for our town budgets, we maintain an AA+ rating, which enabled us to secure the financing for this project at an interest rate of 3.2%. Losing that rating with fiscal mismanagement could cost the town more than $1 million, in additional finance charges.
The list of services Joe has provided this town since his arrival in 2012 is long and continues to grow and has been well-documented in this newspaper over the past weeks and years. The person that sits in a Select Board seat needs to have a broad focus across all the towns needs. While no one would argue about the importance and value of our schools it is also important to understand the town demographics. Based on the most recent census there are 6,417 homes in Lynnfield, of those 961 have school-age children. That is roughly 15%. Many in the 85% group are retired and on fixed incomes. Our budget process needs to keep that group in mind as steep property tax increases can be a real hardship. Those 85% are also entitled to consideration and support from the town. Joe Connell has proven through the many positions he has held that he understands this and you know from the past service you will get someone that you can depend on to be at every meeting representing the entire Town of Lynnfield.
Mark Scollard
