This Override Won't Fix What's Wrong

Budgeting is about identifying needs, setting priorities and discussing good, creative, effective and efficient ways to achieve the priorities with the resources available. For this override, the city is asking for another $5,180,000 simply to do more of the same. It doesn’t even attempt to spend differently any of the $50,000,000 already spent on the schools each year. Agreeing to this override will only buttress the status quo, which in my opinion isn’t working.

Administrators and the School Committee have staunchly refused to be introspective. Not only have they not been open to any discussion of ways to make better use of the funds we already have, they won’t even acknowledge there are shortcomings. They spend more energy defending the status quo (even paying a PR firm) and covering up their failings, than they do trying to figure out how to improve things for our children. School Committee meetings have become mutual self-congratulation sessions, rather than substantive discussions and debates about what is working well, what needs improvement, and how to improve the latter.

During the most recent budget discussions, I have not seen one City official, School District Administrator, employee, or School Committee member step forward with an exciting, creative, and practical description of how they would change the status quo and use the funds they already have to improve the state of our schools and city. Instead we hear over and over again what we will lose if we don’t pass the override—threats of cuts specifically designed to extort voters to support the override by scaring them into it.

We should not forget that in asking for this override, the people we elect and hire to manage the affairs of our city have conceded failure—failure to do the job they were given by the voters. These officials are expected to develop creative ideas and visions of a future. Creating a vision of what we might do if we had even MORE funds is always a good idea; it prepares us to make quick and efficient use of an unexpected windfall, and simultaneously it articulates a vision for the future that the citizens might decide to adopt in the form of an override (should this appeal to enough of the citizens). But this doesn’t mean they should abandon their main responsibility, to come up with inspirational ways to use the $60 million the City currently receives from property taxes to meet the requirements under law and continually improve the services we receive. Saying they cannot figure out how to manage with the money we have is NOT a vision for the future.

When our Superintendent interviewed for the position in the Melrose School System, it was not “to manage the affairs of the district so long as the tax-payers fund a prop 2.5 override”! It was “to create a vision for the future within the budget.” If that is no longer her intention—to fulfill the responsibility she accepted when she was hired—we need to look for someone who has the skill and dedication it takes to make our $50,000,000 school budget work for the children. Similarly, Mayor Infurna seemed genuinely eager to be appointed Mayor. It’s troubling to hear that her message now is, if we fail to pass the override, she’ll cut funding for repairing pot holes and stop supporting our Senior Citizens! Nonetheless, these are the kind of words we are hearing in on-line discussion pages and the threats listed on the city website under “proposed reductions”, (https://www.cityofmelrose.org/home/news/city-departments-face-substantial-negative-impacts-without-override), duplicated in the Mayor’s blog (https://mayorinfurna.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/city-departments-face-substantial-negative-impacts-without-an-override/) and echoed by Alderman-at-large, Manisha Bewtra, (https://melrose.wickedlocal.com/news/20190303/bewtra-vote-yes-on-melrose-override-2019) and Alderman-at-large, Kate Lipper-Garabedian, in her recent publication https://melrose.wickedlocal.com/news/20190313/lipper-garabedian-support-schools-bedrock-of-melrose.

Shame on them and shame on the Aldermen and the School Committee for not requiring these highly-paid administrators to do the jobs for which they were hired. The very fact they’re unwilling to craft and implement a (non-punitive) vision based on our current tax revenue is itself a reason NOT to give them more via the override—they won’t use the additional any more responsibly than they use their current millions.

School administrators have proposed a checklist of superficial fixes that do nothing to build a competent future for the children or the tax-payers. The School Committee members refuse to do their job; holding the administrators accountable to their responsibilities outlined in their job descriptions. They have proved to be unable to spend wisely, creatively, and efficiently to achieve any legitimate vision of what our children require in this new world, and thus they have failed in their primary duty to be effective guardians of our tax revenue. It would be foolish to throw more money at a broken system and expect the same people who broke it to repair it. The problems we have are not the kind that more money will fix. More money will only hide them better and only temporarily. Only after the Superintendent, School Committee and Mayor engage in inclusive discussions of what needs to change in the schools, and how $50,000,000 can be applied better toward that end each year, should Melrose agree to consider more funds.

George Campbell Kaynor