LYNNFIELD — As part of the fiscal year 2024 state budget, Lynnfield High School will receive $30,000 to upgrade its basketball courts and rebuild its tennis courts.
Last week, the legislature unanimously passed a $56 billion budget, including funding for numerous local programs.
“The building of tennis courts is kind of like the last piece of the puzzle that was completed in the renovation of the high school,” Town Administrator Rob Dolan said. “And the basketball courts were really a safety issue. Plus, there were other issues, like the baskets would hang over the volleyball nets and things like that.”
The town has two separate budgets for the year — an operating budget that deals with the day-to-day operations of all departments and a capital budget of money allocated for one-time projects. The upgrading of basketball courts and rebuilding of tennis courts falls under the capital budget. The American Rescue Plan Act also provides funding for local town projects.
According to Dolan, the Town of Lynnfield has done a number of things with the ARPA funds.
“We’ve purchased the Richardson woods with ARPA money, we’ve purchased an ambulance,” Dolan said. “We will use that money for the tennis courts too.”
Dolan said that the town hopes to address the school’s infrastructural issues with capital money instead of using the school’s budget that caters to students, teachers, and educational items.
“We want the schools to have more money to spend on education,” Dolan said. “More time and energy should be spent on teachers and student-based items, various educational services for students rather than having to worry about new windows, a new roof, new tennis courts. I think that’s a really good philosophy here.”
The town will begin drafting its budget for the following year in November or December and urges all departments to submit their budget requests by then.
“When we start building the budget for the following year, we’ll ask ask the departments to make their budget recommendations to the operating budget, and their list of capital requests ranked by them,” Dolan said. “Then my job is to recommend to the Board of Selectmen what should be chosen and what shouldn’t be, which is pretty hard honestly. No one asks for something that isn’t needed.”
According to Dolan, the expenditure on tennis courts will benefit everyone, and not just students.
Lynnfield secured $130,000 from the budget and will be using the funds for three local projects. Apart from the school basketball and tennis courts, $50,000 will go toward a new war memorial project, and $50,000 will be used for solar speed signs.
