This article is the second in a two-part series covering a candidates forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Franklin County at the John Zon Community Center on Monday evening.
GREENFIELD — The six School Committee candidates running for three seats with four-year terms in the Nov. 4 biennial election shared their views on a multitude of issues at a Monday night forum, including whether to station a school resource officer in Greenfield, how to create a transparent budgeting process and how to grow literacy among students.
Current School Committee member Elizabeth DeNeeve, Pioneer Valley Regional School teacher Jeffrey Diteman and Stoneleigh-Burnham School teacher Adrienne Craig-Williams have formed a cooperative campaign of candidates, running against another slate made up of Public Safety Commission Chair David Moscaritolo, School Committee member Melodie Goodwin and At-Large City Councilor Michael Terounzo.
Following introductions at Monday’s forum at the John Zon Community Center, each candidate was given 60 seconds to respond to 10 questions.
Budgeting
One question asked candidates to consider, “Given that the school system budget typically accounts for more than 30% of the city’s annual budget, how will you collaborate with the superintendent and the mayor to create an adequately funded school budget that does not result in a Proposition 2½ override?”
Moscaritolo responded that a transparent budgeting process is key for ensuring a seamless and responsible school budget.
“It starts with transparency. I don’t think we’ve had transparency, and if you don’t start with transparency, you don’t have collaborations between the School Committee and the mayor,” Moscaritolo said. “We need to know where every dime is being spent, because it’s important to know that and because we want to spend most of our money on our children, on our children’s programs, meaning also our teachers. We spend too much money on administration.”
DeNeeve explained that if the School Committee sets budgetary goals informed by constituents, it can collaborate with the superintendent to draft a budget that is “educationally sound” and guided by administrators. She added that by having regular meetings with City Council and the Ways and Means Committee, the School Department’s Budget and Finance Subcommittee can ensure all parties are on the same page.
“One of the things that we have not done, but need to begin to do as a School Committee, is to set goals for the budget, and those goals need to be given to us by you, the constituents. That’s a best practice that we need to put into place, and that is a way to start collaboration with the superintendent,” she said. “The mayor will always come with cuts after the superintendent lays out the budget. We expect that the budget that we submit to the mayor and to the city is one that is educationally sound and guided by the superintendent.”
Diteman, responding to the same question, explained that with health insurance costs increasing dramatically, the School Department should search for cheaper alternatives to its current insurance provider. As the city searches for a new superintendent, he hopes someone who shares the district’s goals for growth will be hired.
“Greenfield is in a very difficult position with regard to funding the schools, and that has to do with our limited tax base, the rising costs of funding a school, in particular, with the rising health insurance costs. It is to be hoped that we will be able to get our educators out of [the department’s] current health care provider and find a more affordable source for health care,” Diteman said. “It is also to be hoped that we will hire a very capable and cooperative superintendent who is going to come to the table with an open heart and with the same vision that we have, which is a vision for creating schools that are centers of excellence so that we can do better on student retention.”
Goodwin explained that the hiring of a business manager and superintendent who share the department’s goals will help ensure a more efficient budgeting process. She said rather than asking for 3% increases each year through the school budget, the district needs to determine why families are choosing to leave the district.
“We need to hire a superintendent and a business manager who can identify priorities for the community, the teachers and the children that needs to be budgeted right now,” Goodwin said. “We’ve been doing the same old thing for the last five years, adding 3% [to the budget]. Instead, we need to go down to zero and rebuild. One of the things that needs to happen is we need to look at why families are leaving Greenfield and respond to that, and we have not been doing that.”
Echoing Goodwin and Diteman that hiring a responsible superintendent and business manager will help in crafting a strong school budget, Terounzo added that a transparent budgeting process, including collaboration with the Ways and Means Committee, is essential. He said investing in programs to keep students engaged in school is also key.
“I agree with a better collaborative effort on [the budgeting process]. I believe some efforts made in the past to get information — they’ve been stonewalled. I’ve had to live through it … you’ve all heard my frustration,” Terounzo said. “It’s about getting the priority set at the early level of the School Committee’s budget, so that by that time, it can be really reviewed by the superintendent. Getting the answers from the business manager that the superintendent needs, so a responsible budget can be given to the mayor, and even if there are cuts, it won’t be so drastic.”
Craig-Williams, summarizing the points made by other candidates, agreed that the budget process should include collaboration with the superintendent, the Ways and Means Committee and a new business manager.
“Collaboration with the mayor and superintendent will begin with hiring superintendents in a transparent process so we can ensure we have the same priorities,” she said. “I agree with having cross-pollination between the Ways and Means Committee and the School Committee budget, and hiring the new business manager would help as well, so that they can focus on our school and not be spread in all directions.”
School resource officers
When candidates were asked their thoughts on having school resource officers in Greenfield schools, Craig-Williams noted she is against stationing an SRO in the district, as she believes “having a person with a gun in a school” is a bad idea. She also argued that she does not believe SROs make schools safer.
Moscaritolo, mentioning his role as a member of the Public Safety Commission, said he is not necessarily in favor of stationing an SRO at the schools, nor is he against it. He recounted an instance last year in which a Greenfield High School student was hospitalized with head injuries after a cafeteria fight — an incident that parents said they were not notified of until days later.
“When a parent came to me three or four months ago because their child got beat up by another child in the school and the superintendent didn’t call that parent … I have concerns about that,” Moscaritolo said. “A school resource officer is just one thing that could make schools safer. I’m not saying I’m for it, I’m not saying I’m against it. I’m saying, let’s be open. How to keep our children safe? There’s lots of ways to do that.”
DeNeeve, on the other hand, referenced past issues when the idea of stationing an SRO in the district was brought before the School Committee. Although most recently, a large number of residents spoke in support of an SRO, DeNeeve said constituents have been overwhelmingly against it.
“This vote on SROs has come up twice since I’ve been on the School Committee, and both times, we heard resoundingly from our constituents through email and public comment that they did not want an SRO in the schools. We heard from students as well as parents, when the police chiefs came to speak to us and ask us about SROs,” DeNeeve said. “We were not given any actual evidence that SROs in the school system solve crime, stop crime [or] save kids. There is no evidence suggesting that any of that is effective.”
Diteman shared DeNeeve’s opinion that there is a lack of evidence showing that police in schools is an effective measure to keep students safe, adding that a number of students feel less safe around law enforcement officers.
“I would like to live in a world in which having a police officer in the room makes everyone feel safer all the time. I would like to live in a world where police don’t make people feel afraid. Unfortunately, in my own experience, because of where I grew up, I grew up being afraid of police,” he said. “If the community doesn’t want police officers in school, I think that we have to go along with what the community wants.”
Goodwin, noting that the issue is “a hard one,” explained that the district has to address its attendance issues and bullying problems. She said if an SRO is not stationed in schools, then the School Department needs to look for alternative disciplinary measures.
“As a principal, I can tell you about the amazing police officers in this community who have needed to help a child and to help a family. The vote happened and we don’t have an SRO,” Goodwin said. “We have a problem with bullying in our schools, in our cafeterias. People have taken their children out because they cannot seem to stop the bullying for their child that needs to be addressed in our schools. … Without an SRO, we need to look at alternatives, especially in the area of discipline.”
Explaining that he believes the issue is more of a national debate that has trickled down to the local level, Terounzo emphasized that teachers need some sort of disciplinary support to maintain classroom safety. He added that if students get used to having first responders in the schools at a young age, they are more likely to build trust with law enforcement later on in life.
“This is what I’ve always been on the fence about. I think this is more of a national issue that gets brought down the local level and sometimes over-excited,” he said. “There have been communities, local communities, that have had someone like that who have done wonders for a lot of children, especially at the high school age, because if you get the right people in there, it’s not a threat anymore.”
Audit
When the candidates were asked if they would “support an audit of the school budget for the purpose of getting a better understanding of how money is being allocated and spent,” DeNeeve, explaining that the state audits the School Department’s spending each year, asserted that she does not believe it is necessary to spend extra on a third-party audit.
“We are audited every year by the state. It is a requirement and you can request that audit at any time. We have never received a letter admonishing us in any way for our budget process. We’ve been told this multiple times by our business manager,” DeNeeve said. “I do not think that it would be a good use of our limited school funds to pay for a third party or an objective party to do an audit. … For a district our size, it will cost $100,000 to $120,000 to do an independent audit.”
Diteman echoed DeNeeve’s comments, adding that hiring a dedicated business manager in the district, rather than a contracted service through TMS, would help to build a more transparent budgeting process that the community can be more comfortable with.
“We’re audited every year, so I think that in order to make things more transparent and have the community feel more comfortable about the way that money is being spent, it would be more useful to hire a dedicated budget manager, as other candidates have pointed out, and make sure that that person is writing the budget in a way that regular people can understand it and read it,” he said. “A lot of us are very interested in more transparency around the school’s finances, but I think that the best way to go about that, rather than a third-party audit, would be to hire a dedicated budget manager who’s going to work with us.”
Goodwin responded that whoever the committee choses for the district’s next superintendent should play a role in auditing the department’s spending.
“It is my hope that we hire a superintendent who, before they will spend a single dime, will audit our books. Most quality superintendents come into a district and they do that before they touch the money, just to make sure that everything is in its place,” she said. “We currently spend $200,000 for a company to manage our money and that’s been going on for six years — it’s time to see what’s been going on.”
Stating that he supports investing in an independent audit, Terounzo said it might be an efficient method to determine if and how funds have been mismanaged in a more thorough way than that provided by the annual state audit.
“I actually wouldn’t put off the idea of an independent audit. It might just be the place where we start over. I think books have been mismanaged, in my opinion, for a number of years now, and as I stated before, starting with a new business manager would be helpful,” Terounzo said. “Maybe not even just so much of a financial audit, more of a functioning audit of how we do things here. It might be different than the cookie-cutter audit that the state does across all districts. More of an audit of what works for Greenfield.”
Craig-Williams, who said she is “not opposed” to an independent audit, said that a lot of the confusion around the budget comes from misunderstanding, and not necessarily mismanagement of funds.
“I support transparency in the budget process as well, and I would not oppose an independent auditor if it’s warranted, which is something I would have to see when I got there,” she said. “There is a difference between things not being clear and things being underhanded, and I think we should assume good faith.”
Moscaritolo said he took issue with the committee’s recent vote to spend roughly $10,000 to audit its transportation budget when it already pays a business manager $200,000. He argued that the community needs to know where the money is being spent, and furthermore, school funding should be spent primarily on students and teachers.
“I have a problem when I read in the paper that we’re going to spend $10,000 to look into our transportation budget, when we have a finance director that we pay $200,000 that should know our budget to a T,” Moscaritolo said. “I run a very large security account and I have to account for every dime — if I didn’t, I probably wouldn’t have a job. … We also spend a lot of money on transportation. We own a school bus company, and nobody can answer the questions on if that bus company is making a profit or we’re not making a profit on there. We need to know where our money is being spent.”
Candidates unanimously agreed that the state should drop its vaccine exemptions for families who have philosophical objections to vaccinating children and that it was wise to drop the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) test as a graduation requirement in last year’s election.
In addition to the League of Women Voters of Franklin County, Monday night’s forum was co-sponsored by the Precinct 7 Neighbors Network.