Elementary Science Kits, Sidewalks Targeted In Proposed Budget Addition

During fiscal 2011 budget deliberations this spring, the Melrose Board of Aldermen cut $35,000 from Mayor Rob Dolan's initially proposed budget — funds that Monday night the board took a first step towards reallocating mainly for elementary school science kits and sidewalk repairs, but not without serious debate.

The aldermen's Appropriations Committee voted 9-1 to recommend the funding to the full board. Alderman at-Large Paul Brodeur, the Appropriations Committee chairman, said that order before the board is the result of a collaboration between himself, Aldermen President and Ward 3 Alderman Frank Wright and Dolan.

The order would give $15,000 back to the Melrose Public Schools for the purpose of purchasing one FOSS (Full Option Science System) science kit for each of the five Melrose elementary schools, at a cost of $3,000 per kit. Another $18,000 would go to sidewalk repairs and $2,000 would go the veterans services' department.

Superintendent Joe Casey told the aldermen that after learning the one-time money would be available through discussions with city administrators, he spoke with the elementary school principals about the best way to use that money. The elementary principals agreed upon the science kits, which Casey said he would recommend to the Melrose School Committee, which has yet to hear about the proposal in formal session. Four members of the School Committee — Chairwoman Margaret Driscoll, Kristin Thorp, Carrie Kourkoumelis and J.D. LaRock — were present at Monday's meeting, but did not speak.

Lincoln School Principal Brent Conway, sitting next to Casey at Monday's meeting, said that the kits provide hands-on study of science, as opposed to learning from textbooks. Each kit has 3-6 units focused on various subjects, resulting in 4-6 weeks of study using the kits, and said that the FOSS curriculum — created at the University of California-Berkley — has the majority of materials teachers would need to implement the kits in their classrooms available for free on the FOSS website, including multimedia that could be used in instruction. Casey added that the kits could be rolled into the curriculum beginning next school year with no problem.

Both Casey and Conway said that the shelf-life of the kits is around a decade, not including occasionally replacing a broken part or sand and other items needed to use the kit, which would add less than $50 to each elementary school's annual budget.

The need for science kits, Conway said, is because the district's science curriculum "does not necessarily align to exactly where we need to be in the state frameworks." Compounding that is the fact that beginning with the Class of 2010, all Massachusetts high school students must pass a science MCAS exam in order to graduate.

"That certainly speaks to the importance of a cohesive science unit," he said. "We've done some tweaking, but our materials and units are not where we need them to be."

In response to questions from Ward 2 Alderman Monica Medeiros, a former School Committee member, Casey said the kits themselves only supplement the science curriculum, not replace it, and the initial purchase of one kit per elementary school is a first step. Purchasing three kits per grade would cost $45,000-$55,000 in total, while purchasing and instituting a new science curriculum would cost $50,000-$60,000, for a total of $100,000-$110,000.

"(The science kits) help bootstrap the curriculum ... and bridge the gap during these tough budget years," Casey said. "We all know more and more that math and science are taking a strong position in the 21st century. This is one way we can put in a stop gap and have a meaningful experience for students. At the same time, we can make recommendations for expenditures to the School Committee that aren't over the top (financially). The equity issue is something that really drove us."

On the sidewalk repairs, Brodeur said Dolan brought to his and Wright's attention a request from Department of Public Works (DPW) Superintendent Bob Beshara for the additional funding. Although a specific list of sidewalk repairs the $18,000 would be used for was not available to the aldermen at Monday night's meeting, several aldermen spoke about how sidewalk and street repairs are the most common requests — or complaints — they hear from their constituents. Ward 7 Alderman William Forbes added that there is "almost a two-year waiting period" to get a requested sidewalk repair on the DPW's active to-do list.

Similarly, the aldermen did not have available to them an itemized list of how the additional $2,000 for the veterans services' department would be spent. Medeiros asked for such a list to be available at the next full board meeting, while Alderman at-Large asked for an itemized list on the sidewalk repairs funding.

Why didn't this come up at a School Committee meeting, and what's the purpose of the aldermen's budget cuts?

How the aldermen came to vote on such a specific request for the School Department raised some questions. After the aldermen voted to re-open public participation to allow him to speak, Gerry Mroz, a resident who frequently speaks at School Committee meetings, said he was puzzled that the School Committee undertook its own budget deliberations to approve a bottom line for the district, during which he did not recall elementary science kits brought up as a potential priority for Melrose Public Schools.

"I find it strange that this board is now specifying for some marginal money that may be available to buy science kits with," Mroz said. "It's not just that we're buying science kits for the elementary grade levels, but that this board is specifying the size and company, rather than leaving that up to the curriculum review process."

In response, Brodeur noted that the Board of Aldermen cannot tell the School Department or the School Committee how to specifically spend any funding included in the school budget, but that the aldermen would prefer to know exactly what they are voting to fund. He said that the majority of the available $35,000 — $30,000 to be exact — comes from a cut in the Fire Department's overtime budget, a cut available due to the Fire Department receiving and the city accepting a grant that will fund four additional fire fighters, negating the need for additional overtime costs.

While stating that all the requests were "worthwhile expenditures," Medeiros bluntly stated that the packet included a letter from Brodeur to the mayor requesting the expenditures, but that the aldermen had never voted on what its particular priorities were to add back to next year's budget.

"It makes us question the way this came into place," she said.

Brodeur responded that the process is "not uncommon" and that the aldermen cannot add to the budget, only request money to be added to the budget, and that the order before the board came from discussions between himself, Wright and the mayor.

"It's open for discussion now," he said. "If someone thinks there is a better priority or that money shouldn't be spent at all, that's open to us. Folks should not be reticent to offer amendments or cuts, if they don't think it's a good (expenditure)."

Medeiros later responded that she knows the aldermen cannot add to the budget, but since she has served on the board and in situations where the aldermen seek to add to the budget, the board has crafted a resolution detailing any additional expenditures and voted on that resolution, which is then sent to the mayor who can send the board an order asking for those expenditures. She added that in crafting the resolution in an open forum, the aldermen could put forth amendments at that time.

Brodeur responded that, "again, I want to stress" that Board of Aldermen members were free to make amendments to the order before them.

Alderman at-Large Ron Seaboyer, the lone 'nay' vote against recommending the order to the full board, said his biggest concern was that he did not consider the $35,000 as "extra money." Rather, he said, it was money cut specifically from the budget to ease the burden on taxpayers.

"We spent a lot of time here working on the budget," Seaboyer said, noting that he did not vote in favor all the cuts made during budget deliberations. "To me, all those arguments we had across the tables here, it was frivolous. We shouldn't have had those arguments at all (if the money was going to be added back)."

In contrast to Seaboyer's characterization of the budget deliberations, Conn said that the cut to the Fire Department overtime line item probably took "all of ten seconds," but said that he supports those cuts during budget deliberations without the intention of adding back those funds to another department at a later time. He said that the expenditures included in the order are "fine," but that he did not like that every year the aldermen cut from the budget, only to add those funds back in at a later date, and that while he would support the order, he did not like doing so.

"I can't help making one point: I'll remember this, no one else will remember this, but I will remember this," he said. "At budget time I'm going to ask the Public Works Department how much is in there for the sidewalk repairs account. They'll say, 'Oh, we need it, we're going to spend it' … this $18,000 is not going to be spent. I'll bring it up. That will happen. Let's vote (this order) through. Let's move on."