Town, School Agreement On Fields Maintenance, Costs Still Elusive

After months of work on a memorandum of understanding (MOU) outlining responsibilities with regard to school fields used by the town and the public as well as the schools, an agreement is still being drafted.

The School Committee took up the latest version at its meeting Tuesday night, sending it back to town and school staff members for further work after complaining both about its appearance (too confusing) and its content (worries about costs for fields not used much by the schools).

“We’ve got great intent, but we just seem to be getting tangled up in our shorts here, getting it down on paper,” said Committee member David Green. “It’s an extraordinarily difficult document to understand. … This is a very simple concept. Tell me what we’re going to do and, are we coming out net neutral?”

“We are going to be watering more at the high school,” said member Mary Ellen Winters, remarking that the easement fields in particular are very little used by high school teams but heavily used by youth soccer and lacrosse leagues. “It is something we need to pass on to these other groups?”

School Committee Chairwoman Deidre Gifford thought not.

“But that’s what towns are for. That’s why we pay thousands of dollars in property taxes,” she said.

“If the funds are going to come from the school side of the ledger,” said Supt. Victor Mercurio, “as the use increases, it’s just something we need to think about going forward.”

“We’re all the town,” said Green. “We pay for school stuff and the open space -  that which is used by anybody for any purpose … is town stuff on which we all pay taxes.”

“It’s just not that clear, the dividing line,” said Gifford. “It’s all mushed together, because we all use the same facilities.”

Green then suggested that they chart usage and break it down that way, readjusting each year.

The town could just pay for everything, since in a sense it does, said Gifford. “Either they give it to us and we pay for it or they pay for it and they don’t give it to us.”

As to why the town doesn’t just pay for everything since it holds the purse strings, Gifford said her understanding is that it’s an accounting issue.

“The other thing that’s behind it is, just, clarity,” she said. “Which we haven’t really had and we always stumble up against, who’s responsibility is this and that. So, we’re working hard to make sure that everything’s super clear.”

And then she said, “Back to the drawing board.”