Swampscott Town Meeting Approves $80K For Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Consultant

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Swampscott town meeting members approved the town's $79 million general operating budget for Fiscal Year 2024 on Monday night, including $80,000 for a consultant that would lead to the hiring of a previously approved Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion position, and rejecting a bid to raise the tax levy to add about $36,000 in funding to a senior planning position.

The $80,000 DE&I figure was a late compromise between the Select Board, which voted last week to raise the recommendation from an original budget figure of $6,000 to a fully-funded position of $100,000, and a proposal to first hire a consultant for $80,000 that would use the rest of this year to determine the town's specific DE&I funding needs and appropriate costs for the position in future years.

The money used for the consultant was moved from various other line items outlined at the May 9 Select Board meeting.

"We're going to hire a consultant, or a firm, that will help us understand really what that position salary and scope of work and priorities should be," Fitzgerald said Monday night. "Moving forward with a consultant will help us really frame this next step in the best way for the town.

"It's important to understand that it's not just the town organization that really needs a conversation. It's the entire town. So when we hire a consultant they are going to look at all aspects of a community's support for diversity, equity and inclusion. And really help us broaden that dialogue so we can all see where are the barriers, where are the structural issues with equality, and fairness.

"Are they just in hiring or are they in the way we zone certain neighborhoods? Are they in the way we support decisions when it comes to public housing? All these other facets in how a community addresses these very real issues."

A much longer conversation was had on the town's struggles to fill a chief planning position and the best way to go about that. There were several proposals to add significantly to the budgeted figure for the open position — including one that would have raised the townwide tax levy by $36,000 — but those failed out of concerns of the precedent it would said to raise the levy on the floor of town meeting and how that budgeting might impact other positions within town government.

Fitzgerald allowed that hiring for the position remains a high priority for the town and said there are some means to be able to work with the proposed salary to help satisfy the right candidate.

Town meeting members also approved the acquisition and appropriation of the 12-24 Pine Street property the town reached an agreement to purchase with the intent of redeveloping the property into affordable senior veterans housing, as well as renovating the adjacent VFW.

The town meeting adjourned for the first night after three hours with Tuesday's night discussion leading off with an article on the extension of the Hawthorne lease for proposed restaurant use for up to two years while a long-term plan for the town-purchased oceanfront property is formalized, a vote on proposed re-use of the Hadley School once the new school is finished next year, and a promised update on the town's seawall condition after last week's partial collapse under the Mission on the Bay restaurant, which is right next door to the Hawthorne property.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)