SWAMPSCOTT — A comprehensive financial retreat will bring together members from the town’s four top leadership boards Saturday to discuss school finances and brainstorm solutions for inefficient spending.
The second annual Swampscott Financial Retreat will be at the Swampscott Middle School library from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. and will feature discussion from the town’s Select Board, School Committee, Finance Committee and Capital Improvement Committee.
Public input will be welcomed, but the majority of the day will consist of conversations centered around an eight-item agenda that notably focuses on the push for a new elementary school and an analysis of the teachers’ contract, which comes during a period of tense negotiations.
The summit’s overall focus will be on how the town can strike a balance among its many educational and municipal funding priorities as it works to sustain its long-term financial outlook.
“This Saturday, as we’ve done in the past, we will step through a complicated array of educational and municipal financial responsibilities as we work to share a common understanding of how these costly structural obligations have been baked into the town budget and municipal taxes,” said Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald in a statement.
Last year’s idea for a summit was born out of the realization that the town’s normal meeting process doesn’t allow for its elected officials from various boards to come together and spend a prolonged period of time on any particular financial challenges, according to Peter Spellios, chairman of the Select Board.
“This is pretty remarkable for four committees to (set aside) time to do an annual financial retreat,” said Spellios. “This group of volunteers spread throughout all four committees are willing to come together to learn more and challenge ourselves to find a better solution.”
Town officials are hailing last year’s summit, which focused on financial challenges facing Swampscott, as a success. Those discussions affected how the Finance Committee weighs the town’s expenses and forced town administration to renegotiate contracts.
For instance, an analysis of the police department’s union contract conducted last year revealed that the town spends more on public safety than its peer communities and officers benefit from seven-day paid vacation weeks, rather than the typical five-day week.
Similarly, this year, Finance Committee chairman Tim Dorsey will conduct an analysis of the Swampscott Education Association contract, which will be focused on understanding costs built into the contract.
The teachers’ contract discussion is expected to tie into a presentation from Superintendent Pamela Angelakis and her administrative team, where she will talk about the district’s spending and what she cannot do programmatically because of increasing salaries. Approximately 80 percent of the school’s budget is devoted to staff payroll.
Unless there’s more funding to support the contract — the teachers’ union has asked for 3 percent raises while the town’s last offer was 1 percent raises for the first year and 2 percent for the following two years — officials fear the school budget will not be balanced, which would require payroll or programming cuts.
A further challenge is the town has tasked the School Committee and administration in recent years with limiting its budget growth to 2-2½ percent. The majority of the school budget is the amount of funding the town allocates to the school department each year.
The bottom of the agenda is devoted to school capital needs, expected to focus on the town’s efforts to build a new consolidated elementary school.
The plan has been accepted by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), a quasi-independent government authority that helps fund the construction of school buildings, and a $750,000 feasibility study will get underway this month.
Although the MSBA program provides reimbursement for communities for school construction, if the new school is approved by voters, it would result in the single largest tax increase in the town’s history.
Town officials plan to ask voters to approve a debt override from Proposition 2½, which limits the amount of revenue a municipality can raise from property taxes, for what’s anticipated to be a $70 million school.
Residential taxes have gone down in Swampscott for the past three years, but still remain among the highest in the state.
The summit will wrap up with a discussion on what happens next, in terms of the town’s financial policies. The summit is expected to impact the town’s budgeting process this year.
“I’m really excited to talk about a broader vision for improving Swampscott’s educational outcomes,” said Angelakis in a statement. “There is no greater responsibility than making the right investments in the next generation of Swampscott children and all of these investments require financial investments and a shared strategy as we seek to build a collective vision for educational leadership.”
