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Town OKs
Proposal to
Consolidate

By Scott MacKeen
Staff Writer
5/13/10
An initiative to consolidate maintenance of town and school buildings under a new department took a step forward last week.

After considerable debate May 6, Annual Town Meeting approved two articles related to the consolidated-facilities plan. The first grants the town the right to establish the department under the state statute. The second sets funding for the hiring of the department director.

During its third and final night, Town Meeting concluded action on the 44-article warrant. It took about two hours to settle the consolidation articles, which received nearly unanimous support, although they were not without detractors.

The purpose of the articles, according to the supporters, was the need for the town to move toward a more highly skilled, centralized plan for maintenance of town buildings. The schools and library, in particular, are to be the focus of the new department, as they are newly renovated and have complex heating, ventilation and cooling systems.

“These are not your grandfather’s brick buildings,” said Anthony Cichello, chair of the Consolidated Facilities Exploratory Committee, which has been studying the idea for nearly two years.

Cichello described aspects of the new department, which would involve the hiring of a facilities director under an agreement between the Selectmen and School Committee. The agreement has yet to be ratified. Cichello said in order to get the department off the ground, the town will need to bargain with employees who are already unionized.

Speaking to the essential need of the department, Cichello said it is still unclear how it will fit within the town government.

“We’re looking at a new paradigm. It doesn’t fit squarely,” he said.

Under the current mode of municipal-building upkeep, department heads not skilled in that field are often tasked with the duties, and maintenance funds are usually the first thing cut in the budget, Cichello said. As a result, “chronic under-funding of maintenance leads to deferred maintenance,” he said.

Town Meeting member and former Selectman Joe McEttrick called the consolidation articles “probably the most important thing we’re going to do at this Annual Town Meeting.”

He said he sees it as the final step in the decade-long project of rebuilding the public schools, which he said were in a “shocking” state of disrepair prior to the rebuild.

Rejection of the new department would mean a “replication of all that history again,” according to McEttrick. He said the new facilities director would be a person who would “demand action” on maintenance issues.

“This is the moment to do this. As a town, we always lose these issues,” he said.

School Committee member Glenn Pavlicek told Town Meeting that the committee unanimously supports the consolidation plan. However, he said, there are still “a million details” to work out relating to an agreement moving forward.

“These are going to be difficult negotiations,” he said.

Some speakers said Bill Ritchie, the current school building director, would be a good man to head the new department, as he is already trained in the HVAC systems.

The funding article approved by Town Meeting allocates $138,000 for the establishment of the department. About $100,000 would pay the director’s salary and the rest would fund a capital-needs assessment, Cichello said.

Cichello said the new department would consolidate the maintenance of all the public schools, as well as facilities under the town control, including Town Hall, the police station and firehouses, and the buildings at the DPW yard.

The Library Trustees voted to incorporate the main library into the plan, but the parks and cemetery boards voted against it.

There were a few who spoke in opposition to consolidation, including Steve Morash, a Precinct 2 Town Meeting member. Morash said the school building project, which was financed largely through state dollars, required that adequate funding be set aside each year for upkeep of the new schools.

“Has that been taken out?” he asked.

Morash said there are some “really deep union issues” with which he is troubled.

Some wanted to see a cost-savings analysis that would come from the consolidation of department operations, while still others questioned the need to add another $100,000 administrative position to the budget.

“There never seems to be a good time to ask for money for a new position,” said Cichello, adding, “We don’t have specific dollars figures of what we would save.”

Trying to predict long-term savings before the structure and effectiveness of the new department is known would be “frankly impossible,” McEttrick said.

Mike Maholchic, Precinct 7 Town Meeting member, said he supported the article to establish the department but not the one to fund it.

“I think we should have a little bit more detail” before putting money into the plan, he said.

While she said the idea may not be the “be-all-end-all,” Precinct 5 Town Meeting member Marjorie Jeffries stood in support of both articles.

“We must try something different,” she said.

Property Rights
At the May 6 session, Town Meeting also voted support of two articles related to property rights.

One article transfers ownership of the East Milton Library building from the trustees to the Selectmen, who could potentially lease or sell the space. The trustees last year voted to close the doors to the branch and focus their budget on the main library on Canton Avenue.

Any proposal to sell the library building would need to be considered in an article to Town Meeting, according to Selectmen Chair Marion McEttrick.

The other article allows Selectmen to sell off a small wooded parcel of land off Alvin Avenue. The municipally owned land, which was originally intended as part of an access road to Andrews Park, has been deemed as non-buildable by the town. According to Town Administrator Kevin Mearn, at least one resident whose property abuts the land has expressed interest in buying it. The article sets a $17,000 minimum sale price.

Other Articles
Town Meeting also voted the following articles May 6:
• An allocation of $817,791 to the town’s stabilization fund. The Warrant Committee has indicated that it may recommend utilizing some of the one-time money in fiscal year 2012 to lessen the impact of a budget shortfall. The School Department is relying on federal stimulus funding in FY 11 that will not be available in FY 12.
• An allocation of $350,000 to the reserve fund, for extraordinary or unforeseen expenditures ensured during FY 11.
• An allocation of $50,000 to the capital stabilization fund.
• The continuation of revolving accounts for the Council on Aging, Board of Health, library, cemetery, parks and inspectional services.