Local school districts look to join forces

LYNN – As anxiety mounts among school officials across the North Shore, local communities are looking in to a regionalization grant that would help school districts join together in an effort to save money.In a letter sent this week sent to several local school districts, including Lynn, Salem mayor Kimberly Driscoll is seeking support for the submission of a grant application to the State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (formerly the DOE) to explore regionalization opportunities between Salem and neighboring towns such as Lynn and Swampscott.According to the state, the communities could receive up to $150,000 in state funding to regionalize their efforts, which could be done in a variety of different ways.”The national financial crisis is severely straining state financing,” Driscoll said in her letter. “Thus far, the commonwealth has been able to spare reductions in local aid, however, I and many others expect that it will be much more difficult to maintain current local aid funding levels in the next fiscal year and beyond.”Driscoll went on to say that the state is encouraging regionalization efforts as a means to create more efficient operations, and as a way to prepare for revenue shortfalls.Even though ballot Question 1, which would have phased out the state’s income tax and cut millions in funding from cities and towns, failed last Tuesday, local leaders are still taking a pessimistic view about the upcoming fiscal year 2010 budget.Just last week Mayor Edward J. Clancy Jr. described the situation as “financial Armageddon,” and School Business Administrator Kevin McHugh warned that, unlike last year, he does not have any clear-cut answers to solve the city’s financial problems.Heading in to fiscal year 2009, McHugh and the School Department staff were able to save a large chunk of money by closing the Fallon and Washington elementary schools – two buildings with declining enrollment made expendable by the existence of several other neighborhood schools.This year, McHugh says it is not feasible to close another school, and many programs that were trimmed last year no longer have any fat that can be cut out. All of these problems may leave administrators in many communities no choice but to cut jobs and take from the classroom if state funding falls short like expected.Regionalization is not a new concept to area educators. Lynn Superintendent Nicholas Kostan met with Swampscott school head Matthew Malone earlier this summer to discuss the possibility of combining programs, and even purchasing efforts as a way for both sides to save money.In addition, Lynn Public Schools worked with Salem, Peabody and Gloucester to secure a grant that allowed the four communities to work together on professional development this past summer.The ideas proposed by Driscoll are similar as the grant money could be earmarked for planning activities, addressing collective bargaining issues, curriculum coordination, financial, business and administrative operations along with other support efforts, but cannot become a reality unless at least two of the community’s school boards vote to send the proposal to the state.Lynn School Committee Chair Patricia Capano said Friday that she has heard of a few different regionalization ideas over the last month involving Lynn, and will support any effort that can help municipalities save money. She plans on attending a meeting next Friday along with school officials from Swampscott and Marblehead, and expects to hear more about Driscoll’s proposal in the future.At the same time, she says, until someone comes up with a concrete idea, all of the letters and meetings are just wishful thinking.”This all sounds great if it can be,” she said. “But until it comes to fruition I feel like we are all just grasping at air. We all have the drive to do what we can to strengthen our finances, but there has to be something there at the end for it to work.”