SWAMPSCOTT — The School Committee voted to accept the one-year Memorandum of Understanding between Swampscott Public Schools and the Town, which will see the Recreation Department utilize the building for programs and activities, starting in November.
The Select Board also voted to approve the MOU between the entities during its Wednesday night meeting.
Director of Facilities Max Kasper said, “Superintendent Jason Calichman and I were at the Select Board meeting Wednesday night, where they MOU for the Recreation Department’s use of the Clarke Building, starting on Nov. 1 for one year… I think we’re all very excited about the prospect of the Recreation Department using the building.”
He added that the Recreation Department will be paying the utility bills (such as gas and electricity) while it occupies the building.
School Committee member Suzanne Wright asked Kasper if the department would be paying utilities throughout the whole year.
Kasper confirmed it would be paying utilities throughout the 12 months of the year.
Assistant Superintendent of Finances and Operations Cheryl Herrick-Stella noted that “When we talked about this a year ago, the MOU that you see before you is pretty much the same one from that point.”
“The agreement (at that point) was that the Recreation Department would pay the utilities, and we (Swampscott Public Schools) would pay routine maintenance, and so our budget has that built into it,” Herrick-Stella said.
She continued, noting that initially the concept was that if the Recreation Department did not take over use of the building, there were other interested parties, and so the utility bills for the Clarke building were not factored into the budget.
“It will be nice to have the Recreation Department take those (utility bills) over now, because that was something that we had no intention of having to incur, so we didn’t budget for it last year… But, things happen the way they happen, so it’s good that we can turn that over to Recreation,” she said.
Kasper said the cleaning and custodial maintenance of the building while its being used “is the responsibility of the Recreation Department within the agreement.
“The real costs are contractors: elevator maintenance, fire-alarm maintenance, boiler maintenance. … Many of the facility’s staff are joint town-and-school staff, so it would be appropriate for us to support the building anyways, but we’re not calculating the costs of our time in the building,” Kasper explained.
Herrick-Stella clarified that the initiative will help the town save money.
“Our insurance goes up for vacant buildings — and now that the building will no longer be deemed vacant — the price of the insurance policy for the Clarke school will decrease, though I don’t know to what extent. … But, it actually is a positive thing from an insurance perspective (to have somebody in the building)” she said.
School Committee member Miguel Contreras said that “it’s great to see that we’re trying to give the Recreation Department access to the building.
“I know I’ve definitely seen some people saying that we’re being greedy with the building, but if we were, we would have gone with someone else and added money to the school budget, which we did not,” Contreras said. “I like that we have a partnership with the Town to make this available to the community, so I’m all for this.”
Vice Chair Glen Paster said that he’s “certainly for it.
“I think it’s fine. I did question some of the language… I just want to be really clear with the community: the building’s owned by the school department (Swampscott Public Schools). Period, end of story. Abbot Park is owned by the town. Any change in that will be robustly-discussed, debated and voted upon.
“I know there’s a lot of discussions out there, and I look forward to participating in many of those… But it’s a complicated issue. It’s not a single, ‘Should the school district give it back to the town?’ There’s also, ‘When is the middle school going to be addressed?’ What will we do with those students during that renovation, rebuild, etc.?” Paster said.
Paster continued, saying that by statute, the building is the property of the school district. The committee then voted unanimously to approve the MOU.
