Lynn school budget divides board

LYNN – Some members of the school committee were frustrated at last night’s meeting after a motion to table discussion of the Fiscal Year 2011 school budget was carried.In a 4-2 vote, moved by committee member Donna Coppola, the school committee carried the motion to table the budget to their next meeting to July 22. School committee member Patricia Capano was absent from last night’s meeting. John Ford and Vincent Spirito voted against the motion.”We had already gone through every single page of the budget and to table it is just postponing the inevitable,” Spirito said. “I mean, it’s ridiculous.”Ford concurred with that statement, though he admitted there were some recommendations he did not agree on, but declined to comment further.”We went through every line item,” he said. “I don’t know what we tabled it for.”According to Coppola, there were a number of items within the budget, despite it being balanced at the time of the meeting, that members including Richard Starbard were concerned about.”The biggest piece was the transportation, to be sure that we are pretty accurate in that line item, because it is a really big one – $3.8 million – and we are still concerned about things,” Coppola said.”Mr. Starbard is still very concerned about carpentry at Tech and we are all concerned about the librarians. We worked really, really hard in this city getting library grants a number of years ago. Our kids have been without libraries for a long, long time. We brought the libraries back and now we are down to just seven librarians.”Coppola hopes the state will be able to provide more funding. While the Fiscal Year begins July 1, there is no penalty for having an incomplete budget, though the schools may operate on a supplemental monthly budget until the final budget is approved. Many pieces of information in regards to firming up the budget have arrived late.”The numbers just came in from the state today and I don’t know if they’re firm yet,” Ford said. “I think they’re estimated, but they’re pretty close.”The official appointment of three school nurses was also tabled pending approval of the school budget. While the School Department is currently in the middle of the bumping and bidding process, 70 school employees have been notified of their potential to be laid off.