Outgoing member schools Lynnfield board on issues

LYNNFIELD – Outgoing Lynnfield School Committee member Michael Craffey informed the committee at his last meeting Tuesday night of concerns he felt have not been addressed during his four years on the committee.Craffey advocated for the school district to adopt an online payroll system to combat any opportunities for fraud or theft, since he said salaries comprise 83 percent of the school district?s budget. He also recommended that the committee return to “data-driven decisions.”?Fourteen percent of students failed science and math in the eighth grade, yet there?s no plan of action to remedy this,” Craffey said.Timothy Doyle, the other outgoing committee member, also addressed his colleagues and recognized the different groups of people in the school district that he worked with during his 12 years on the committee.?They all made this job super, super easy – well, I can?t say super easy – but very enjoyable. And everybody worked really hard, and it was an awesome experience,” he said.The committee will not meet again before the April 9 town election, when candidates Christopher Barrett, Salvatore Cammarata and James Dillon will compete for the two seats vacated by Craffey and Doyle.Earlier in the meeting, School Committee Chairperson Dorothy Presser announced that the committee plans to propose at its next meeting on April 30 to transfer a $50,000 budget surplus from fiscal year 2012 back to the town to help with capital improvements.Superintendent Thomas Jefferson called the action “the appropriate fiscal decision,” and said the surplus came from savings in out-of-district special education expenses and not from cutbacks in the schools. He also said that the school district received unanticipated grant money this year, which was used for professional development.?It?s been a win-win year in what we?ve been able to do,” Jefferson said.As a brief update to the high school expansion project, Doyle, who is on the school building sub-committee, said the project will be put out to bid today.Sarah Mupo can be reached at [email protected].