This evening Ms. Gormley, superintendent of schools, gave the presentation recently given to the public to town meeting.

The points of her presentation have been posted previously. A non-contingent budget will reduce school staff by 45.4, a contingent budget would limit the layoffs to 12. Town meeting members rose to speak to the issue almost unanimously in support of it. Some speakers took exception to the union’s refusal to return to the negotiating table. One speaker felt it was incumbent on the school committee to re-engage them to explore all opportunities to save money and also questioned to stipends paid to teachers after hours. Ms. Sheridan, newly appointed chairman of the School Committee spoke to those issues. Regarding the stipends, Ms. Sheridan first pointed out that a large number of teachers can be found after school working with students who are not compensated for that time. Regarding those who do in fact receive stipends, coaches and club supervisors are funded by fees paid by the students who participate in those activities and sports. With regard to the opportunity to renegotiate the contracts, Ms. Sheridan stated she remained hopeful that they would sit down in the future.

Town Meeting member Ms. Varela echoed previous speakers in stating that “It is what it is!” and that failing to make the recommended appropriation should not be viewed as “sticking it to the union.” “Who is going to be hurt?” she asked. The article passed.

Town Meeting Member Chris Hodlin asked to reopen Article 16. Her reason for doing this was with regard to the funds that were voted on the previous day to restore a youth services position. Ms. Hodlin’s concern was that the money would be included but not earmarked for the youth position. Mr. Shields, Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, rose to speak to the amendment and stated, “We recognize what you are trying to do. We [are going] to restore the position.” Ms. Hodlin withdrew the motion to amend.

Town Meeting member Joe Manning sought to amend Article 25, the article regarding the Library appropriation such that additional funding would be restored to keep the East Milton branch library open. The amount needed to keep the library open was calculated to be $76,000, however, after consulting with Town Counsel, it was determined that town bylaws prevented town meeting from an additional appropriation of that amount without a public vetting process. The article passed as it originally appeared in the warrant.

Town Meeting member Brian Kelly asked for clarification regarding how the town was going to manage turning off street lights by 50% which both budgets called for. The town will send out crews that will manually turn off every other light (ie unscrew the bulb).

Senator Brian Joyce also spoke to the group stating what he had written in a letter he distributed at Monday’s meeting. Namely, the projections for national and state economies continue to worsen. In his letter he wrote, “The reality is that the FY10 budget gap, approximately $3.6 billion at present, continues to grow and the use of reserves and federal stimulus money is only a stop-gap measure.” Consequently, Senator Joyce said, it is in the town’s interest to exercise fiscal constraint.

Regarding the Senator’s statement, the Boston Globe had a front page story today (05/06/09), “State facing years of fiscal woes, analysts say.” The article begins:

It took less than a year for the national recession to wreak havoc on state government, but the aftershocks on state budgets will reverberate far longer, making it likely that Massachusetts will be grappling with deep budget cuts and debates about tax increases for years to come, state officials and economists said yesterday. (read full story here).