|
To the Editor, I write for myself and not as an official message from the North Andover School Committee to respond to points in the letter from North Andover Selectman Dan Lanen and School Committee member Dr. Charles Ormsby published on June 14, 2007.
They are right in that the Board of Selectman and School Committee were not unanimous in their votes to support an override and the actual votes were correctly reported in the letter. Dr. Ormsby and Selectman Lanen have both stated and signed pledges that they will never support an override regardless of the reason and I believe most members of the public know this fact. The other points in the letter that I will respond to are less clear. They assert that the "healthy" and "whopping" increases to the overall town and school budgets should take care of all problems and that is that. What they fail to mention is the school budgets of the previous 3 years averaged a mere 1.8 percent in overall increases and in fact for FY 05 the budget increased by only 0.6 percent. All this while many costs outside of the control of local boards have grown well beyond the rate of inflation. Yes the budget increase for FY08 is the best it has been in years. But to imply that all should now be good is to ignore recent history. The letter refers to the recently approved Osgood Landing project and gives the impression that in addition to the one time only payment to be made in FY08 of $600,000, that an additional 1.5 million dollars in fees plus other new tax revenues will also be immediately available to the town. This is not correct. These projected fees and additional new tax revenues will be realized slowly over a number of years as the project is built out. I believe the planners envision a building process of 5-10 years. Of course this is good news and bodes well for future budgets but is not going to help us beginning July 1 2007. It is a stretch to state, " Large new revenue sourcing are pending" unless pending means over a number of years which doesn’t include next year. Yes there is going to be a concerted effort on the part of the both the Board of Selectman and the School Committee to control costs. We are looking at regional cost sharing and merging of duplicate clerical functions between town and school as some examples. I would not refer to this as a "target-rich environment" like we are at war but to effective modern management of scarce resources that will better serve all of our citizens. I draw a different "crystal clear" conclusion from the points in the letter. The alternative to passage of the override will be the continuation of the struggle of all town departments and the schools to provide good adequate services and education to both our Seniors and students and all residents of town. Please vote June 19 and just say "Yes" for the good of all citizens in North Andover. William Kelly Chairman, School Committee North Andover 124 PeachTree Lane No. Andover, Ma 01845 |
