I attended the last meeting of the Greenfield School Committee and certainly came away concerned by what I saw.
Everyone on the committee is stressed by an impossible situation. The schools continue to be underfunded so badly that they can’t keep up with the legal, moral, and ethical requirements necessary to serve the students. Costs keep going up while the money is not there to even maintain the current level of service. Administration does not have the time or resources they need to fully serve the children and to respond to the requests of the committee.
A great deal of pressure falls on the shoulders of the budget committee to come up with a budget that does the impossible.
What is most confusing and disturbing to me is the presence of the mayor on this budget committee. Not specifically this mayor, but any person in that position. Listening to the current mayor talking about how the money coming to district from the Chapter 70 state aid increase will go not just to the school district but also to the city… it became very clear that he was already negotiating with himself, on the one hand representing the interests of the school district and on the other the interests of the town.
Ideally they align, but he can’t fully represent the interests of the school district if he is also trying to balance the other financial responsibilities of the town. It is a structural flaw that I think compromises the work the school committee can do in representing the school district.
The committee’s work is to advocate strongly for the needs of the school district, which the mayor and town council must then balance against the other town needs. The mayor’s presence on both side of that negotiation interferes with that process.
Doug Selwyn
Greenfield