Nahant residents offer opinions on Johnson School override proposal

NAHANT – With just over a week until its fate is decided at the Town Election and Town Meeting, interviews with several Nahant residents revealed that a $260,000 override proposal for funding Johnson School continues to cause debate within the community.”It appears that it’s needed, but one question that seems logical to me is to have it reevaluated each year,” said resident Mark Patek, outlining both sides of the argument. “I haven’t made a decision.”The override was proposed to fill a budget shortfall that school officials attribute to a $113,000 reduction in state and federal funds coupled with a dramatic increase in special-education costs. According to the School Department’s 2012 proposed budget, 21 line items – including everything from funds to pay substitute teachers and offer art, music and physical education classes to health supplies in the nurse’s office – would be eliminated in order to meet minimum state requirements if the override fails. The School Committee, Finance Committee, Town Administrator Mark Cullinan and the Board of Selectmen have all indicated their support for the override.The proposal has nevertheless sparked debate. School committee members have said they are worried that residents who don’t have children in the schools and/or are living on a fixed income will not support the proposal. The proposal will add approximately $189 or $3.50 per week to the average tax bill, according to numbers from Town Accountant Deborah Waters and based on a median home valuation of $540,000. Questions about whether school officials have fully investigated all possible options have also appeared throughout town and in the local monthly newspaper. The override also faces two votes for passage. It must be approved by both a 2/3 majority vote at the Town Meeting and a ballot question at the town election. Both votes will be held on April 30.Philip Joyce said that he would vote against the override.”I’m totally against it,” the graduate of the Nahant Valley Road school said. “Once they get it, it stays on (the budget) permanently. This is no time to have a tax increase.”Joyce’s wife Trudy, who joined him outside the Senior Center, agreed.But parent Britte Roossien, who grew up in the Johnson School and has two children she plans to enroll in Kindergarten and pre-school next year, was as emphatic in her support of the proposal.”When it comes to the kids, you’ve got to step up,” Roossien said before bicycling back home with her kids from the playground. “To not have a thriving school would be devastating for Nahant.”Resident Dan Kane was more ambivalent.”I have four children that went through Johnson School very successfully,” Kane said, while eating lunch at Kelley Greens. “But I haven’t decided.His lunch companion Bob Munnelly said that he had made up his mind, but he had to give fair warning that he was a retired Superintendent of the Reading School System.”I support it,” Munnelly said. “I think they’re open about what the reasons are, I understand the costs associated with Special-Ed students and accept that “Rob Tibbo agreed that the town had “no other choice” to deal with the increased special-education costs.”There’s really no way to predict or anticipate (those) expenses,” Tibbo said, while taking a break from boat repair at Tudor Wharf. He added that he was optimistic for the proposal’s passage.”The town has stepped forward on behalf of schools before and I think they’ll do the right thing,” he said.