Joint Select Board - School Committee meeting

Tuesday night, the Select Board and School Committee met jointlyat the high school library. The meeting was not videotaped. Finance Committee members also attended. The first item on the agenda was updates on the shuttered school buildings, Cushman and Gidley. The school business manager said the schools would like to offer them for lease. The lease would be 1 year with another year option. This arrangement would require approval by the Town Meeting. The plan is to offer an article at the Fall Town Meeting in October. The Town Budget Director then gave an update on the sale of the former Smith Mills school building. A Request for Proposal was issued and no bids where received. He pointed out that the statutory procurement process hamstrings the process.
Student transportation was the next agenda item. The school business manager reported ...

... that Amaral Transportation had submitted a multi year bid with the cost for the second year the same as the first. He said that Amaral had done a good job last year. Mr Cordeiro said that the school will offer one day-one way pass for students who do not ride the bus every day but need to from time to time.
The third agenda item was the FY10 budget plans/process. The chairmen of the School Committee and Select Board maintained that the two boards have had a good relationship in the recent past and will continue to work together. The vice chair of the Finance Committee spoke about the need for restraint, a "reset button" in his words, when negotiating future town union contracts. He pointed out that future budget projections show continuing and growing shortfalls of revenue compared to our expenditures. He suggested that the town unions "skip" one year of salary increase. I think that this is an interesting suggestion and I will post about it in the next few days. I spoke and laid out my reasoning about the need for a fiscal multi-year fiscal plan so that the town boards have a longer view of where we need to go in order to restore fiscal balance to the town. I have posted many times on the subject this blog, such as here, here and here. Basically I wan our town and school administrators to prepare and present a 3 to 5 year plan that reconciles expenditures and revenue.
Finally, the boards agreed to meet at least quarterly and definitely when the Budget Director has the numbers for free cash in the fall.