The town of Greenfield needs to quickly dispose of it’s dysfunctional management processes… non-existent management processes may be more accurate. There are many wonderful aspects to this community and so many great people – teachers, business owners, neighbors and friends – who make it a place worth fighting for. The problems I see are not insurmountable but they are entrenched in a collage of shattered operational systems. These problems have manifest themselves very clearly with the continual budgeting fiasco, but they are also a cause of so many other shortcomings and let downs we’ve experienced over the years.
Communication. On Valentines Day the School Committee voted 5 to 3 to approve “borrowing” $500,000 from the town in order to avoid more devastating cuts to our schools. My understanding is that the NO votes were mainly concerned that there was no plan to address the underlying causes of the continual mismanagement, to correct the lack of oversight of the budgeting process, or absence of accountability. I spoke with several Town Council members after the meeting who were clearly opposed to the idea of the loan on the same grounds. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the School Committee had taken action to ensure this wouldn’t keep happening. I didn’t speak with all Town Council members so I don’t know whether a majority feel this way and are planning to vote no on the loan.
So the problem is this. The Committee voted and now they are going to wait for the Town Council to discuss the option in a week. There doesn’t seem to have been any discussion with the Town Council before the vote to take into consideration their concerns. And there doesn’t seem to be any effort to work with them before the Feb 20th meeting. I’m not blaming the School Committee 100% for this failure – communication goes both ways – the Town Council has a responsibility to reach out as does the Mayor to take a leadership role in bring these folks together as citizens to work out acceptable terms for this loan. None of this seems to be happening. Instead, the Town Council will meet, briefly discuss and then vote on this crucial topic in a void of communication. There is simply no communication. The process is badly broken. In fact it’s difficult to represent this as a process at all.
Accountability. There is none. It looks like one person has been placed on paid administrative leave for an accounting error they made. But why wasn’t that accounting error caught? The obvious and only answer is that again, there is no oversight. People make mistakes – we all do. We always will. We are human. But here in Greenfield we are holding a low level accountant accountable instead of the Mayors office who is ultimately responsible for budget oversight and for catching accounting errors. The Mayor has continually stated that this is her budget. So why isn’t she accountable for this mess?
Community engagement. As a citizen of Greenfield with 2 daughters in the school system I stood up at Thursdays meeting and accepted full responsibility for my personal role in this disaster. I haven’t been involved with the School Committee or active in the community at this level. I haven’t stood up at public meetings and demanded answers. And I pledged to change this and work to make a difference from here forward. There’s a certain level of trust we must have in our elected representatives to act responsibly and to keep our town stable, more productive and growing. The School Committee, Town Council, Mayor and others have a responsibility to seek out and encourage community participation in the process. This just does not happen. People have much more than a right to be involved and to speak out and ask questions in public meetings and in private one on one discussions with our representatives, we have a responsibility to do this. And our elected officials have a responsibility to facilitate that discussion, to seek it out, to welcome it… to listen to what their constituency has to say… and to learn.
Many people were on the verge of tears Thursday night when Molly Parker, a senior and the student representative to the School Committee spoke about a group of athletes wanting to give up all sports so that they could keep the teachers they love so much. That’s the kind of people we have in this town. It’s a true crime that we can’t serve them better than this.
We have good people in positions on Committee’s and the Council who sacrifice time with their families to serve their community. The problem is that the system they work in is badly broken. There is no communication between groups of people who much find a way to work together to find solutions. There is no accountability for those charged with leadership. And the brain power, creativity and generosity of the Greenfield community is not engaged to offer ideas or to help make all our dreams of a better Greenfield a reality.
Will we cut 14 positions? Will we cut 30 positions? I think the answer is yes on both counts, plus 30 more next year unless we can fix the underlying dysfunctional processes that got us here. I don’t think it’s asking too much for the School Committee to work with the Town Council now, before the meeting next week, to create a correctibles and budget oversight process and a plan for accountability should we end up in the same spot again next year. A high level plan could be developed in a week and the details could come later. As far as I can tell that’s all the Town Council members I spoke with are requesting.
How about it folks? Can you get together and work this out? Can you put aside your political differences and give us a show of leadership worthy of the admiration of our children? Leave your formalities and Roberts’ Rules at the door and work this out as people who care about Greenfield.
I will make myself available 24 hours a day if you need help facilitating this discussion.
