Southbridge School Committee Meeting - April 8,2014

Pinch Every Penny

Ken O’Brien

At Monday night’s town council meeting local resident Kevin Buxton expressed the frustration of many citizens regarding the never-ending upward spiral in Southbridge taxes.

The response from Councilor Moriarty during councilors’ forum was to urge attendance at subcommittee meetings where the real work is done on the budget. Once the budget is determined, the setting of the tax rate is a mere mathematical exercise.

In this context, I thought that the report of the April 1 meeting of the General Government subcommittee was especially enlightening.

The chart below is taken from the agenda for that meeting. It has added to it the amount approved and forwarded to the full council with a favorable recommendation. As can be seen, the items approved (with a couple of blanks) amounted to almost $12 million, or over 20% of the proposed FY 2015 budget.

Pop Quiz - Which School Committee Member Is Peter Imitating?

Cool It

Ken O’Brien

The old saying goes, “Sin in haste, repent at leisure.”

In the context of government, the value of this aphorism was recognized by the founders of the Republic.

A key goal of the framers was to create a Senate differently constituted from the House so it would be less subject to popular passions and impulses. "The use of the Senate," wrote James Madison in Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 "is to consist in its proceedings with more coolness, with more system and with more wisdom, than the popular branch." 

ATM’s At Risk

Ken O’Brien

95% of the ATM’s in the U.S. run on Windows XP.

Tomorrow, April 8, Microsoft will no longer provide support for that operating system.

That means Microsoft will no longer issue security updates to patch holes in Windows XP, leaving those ATMs exposed to new kinds of cyberattacks.

If banks fail to upgrade their ATMs to a newer version of Windows, customers might be at risk. If hackers discover new flaws in Windows XP, those bugs will go unaddressed, leaving attackers free to exploit them.

A Dry Run?

Ken O’Brien

This week’s public meetings of Southbridge’s governing bodies should provide an interesting set of counterpoints.

On Monday the Town Council will receive a presentation from the Town Clerk on the fate of a citizens’ petition. Sponsored by a group calling itself “We The People” headed by former Town Councilor James Marino, the petition calls for Southbridge to return to a selectmen/town meeting form of government.

A Ray Of Sunshine

Ken O’Brien

Worcester Business Journal reports that AO Eyewear, Inc. will renovate its Southbridge manufacturing headquarters and buy new equipment using a $1.5-million tax-exempt bond issued by MassDevelopment.

The project is expected to create 15 jobs in Southbridge.

Southbridge Teacher's Union President Speaks Out

David Williams, President of the Southbridge Education Association (SEA), has broken his public silence over recent issues regarding the conduct of the School Committee and the District's Administration.

His comments appeared as a Letter to the Editor in today's Southbridge Evening News.

However, the letter had been distributed previously to SEA members as well as the Superintendent.

Southbridge Town Council Meeting Agenda - April 7, 2014

TOWN COUNCIL MEETING

COUNCIL CHAMBERS

 TOWN HALL

April 7, 2014 –7:00 PM

*******************

 AGENDA

1. Pledge of Allegiance

2. Roll Call

3. Consider and accept Town Council Meeting Minutes of Monday, March 24, 2014. 

Fact Checking The Southbridge School Committee Chairman

Ken O’Brien

In an earlier post we commented on the Worcester Telegram article “Blunt-talking superintendent shakes up Southbridge's underperforming schools” (T&G April 1).

There were a number of items in that article that warranted fact-checking. However, given that the article focused upon the Superintendent, it was felt that his remarks justified primary attention.

In the interim, though, I have been bothered by a remark made by the august Chairman of the School Committee. In the report she is cited as follows: “Chairwoman Lauren C. McLoughlin noted that making an investment in the schools can improve a community's real estate market, as has occurred in Lawrence and in Mr. Nembirkow's former city of Brockton.” 

Southbridge School Committee Meeting Agenda – April 8, 2014

LOCATION: Robert G. MacKinnon Council Chambers, 41 Elm Street

DATE: Tuesday, April 8, 2014

TIME: 7:00 PM

AGENDA

Group Seeks To Upgrade Town Government From 2.0 To 1.2

Ken O’Brien

The Worcester telegram reports that the Southbridge group calling itself “We The People” has obtained the required number of certified signatures to have its plan to return to a selectmen/town meeting form of government placed on the June ballot.

Town Clerk Madaline Daoust said that of the 705 signatures turned in, 587 had been certified. That was 18 more than the 569 required as mandated by the Town Charter. The charter sets the threshold as 5% of the registered voters at the time of last regular town election.

Three Envelopes

Ken O’Brien

Last night an article appeared on the Worcester Telegram web-site titled “Blunt-talking superintendent shakes up Southbridge's underperforming schools.”

The article was basically a recap of Mr. Nembirkow’s budget presentation at last week’s school committee meeting.

Among the statements in the article were:

During his budget message to the School Committee last week, Mr. Nembirkow suggested previous administrations were incompetent, had hired incompetent people, condoned nepotism, and broke the law by not incorporating a state-mandated high school program of studies…. 

Best April Fool's Day Joke

April Fools Again?

Ken O’Brien

For going on four years now I’ve been preaching that the wailing and gnashing of teeth that comes every December when the tax rate is set is pointless.

Once the town budget is approved by the town council the tax rate is effectively set.

It has been shown repeatedly that Southbridge has the highest tax rate of all local communities.

What we hear in response is that the tax rate has to be viewed in relation to the assessed valuation of the properties in the community. We can’t judge simply on the basis of the tax rate because it doesn’t tell the whole story.

In reality that’s what the less politically correct of us call bullshit.