Retirements pressing Lynn school dept.

LYNN – Buried behind the important topics of note, nestled on the second page of the School Committee’s bi-weekly agenda is a section of information that at one time was left primarily blank, save for a rare end of the year announcement by a longtime employee.But as a budget crunch is creating more and more work for the school department administration, it seems the space below the “retirements” heading is holding a bit more ink these days.The latest employee to push retirement papers across Superintendent Catherine Latham’s desk is longtime Manager of Financial Operations Daniel Hourihan, who will end his tenure with the department March 31.While Hourihan’s retirement was no surprise – Latham said he has actually been taking his unused vacation time leading up to his retirement – it creates yet another hole in an administrative staff that has lost a multitude of key members over the last two years.Due to a department-wide hiring freeze, Hourihan will not be replaced this – and likely next – year, meaning that other administrators are left working long hours trying to negotiate the fiscal year 2010 budget on top of the day-to-day tasks of the finance team.The same type of stress can be seen on the curriculum team, as the spot of former Director of Equity and Program Support Janet Birchenough remains vacant, as does one deputy superintendent position, vacated when Latham accepted the job of Nicholas Kostan’s replacement when he retired as superintendent Jan. 9.”We have already taken (Hourihan) out of the (budget) equation, he is actually taking some of his vacation time now,” said Latham. “But without Dan here it is tough, we also have a routine audit going on and (Assistant Business Administrator) Tom Bourque has been here at all hours of the night working on it.”The depleted staff is a direct result of the bad economy, as the school department struggles to pay the staff it has, let alone hire someone to fill positions that pay upwards of $100,000 per year.If the department did not institute a hiring freeze, it is likely that the number of teachers who faced layoffs last month when Gov. Deval Patrick cut $2.7 million from the city’s local aid budget would have been even higher, as Business Administrator Kevin McHugh said at the time he was able to save about half of the $1 million cut from the schools through non-salary areas, some of which included leaving retired positions open.”It is tough,” said Latham. “It is getting kind of empty around here.”The School Committee will meet for its regularly scheduled meeting tonight at 7 p.m. in the Lynn Vocational and Technical Institute Annex Building.