News

Deadline for school consolidation vote imminent

By Cate Lecuyer
Staff writer
Published: May 16, 2008

BEVERLY — The numbers don't match up in Mayor Bill Scanlon's elementary school consolidation plan and Superintendent James Hayes' plan, but the School Committee will vote on one of the options.

"He and the superintendent weren't necessarily agreeing on what the (savings in closing McKeown School) is," said School Committee President Annemarie Cesa.

The mayor's proposal, which he kept a secret until Wednesday's School Committee meeting, is his alternative to Hayes' plan to turn McKeown into a secondary alternative school and Cove School into an early childhood education center.

He suggested closing only McKeown and keeping Cove open, and using money made available through the trash fee and recycling savings and other recycling revenue to pay for Cove.

It would not mean taking money out of the city's sanitation fund, but rather not putting it in there in the first place. Instead, a total of $680,000 would be moved from the general fund to Beverly's public schools, according to Scanlon's plan.

The savings is a combination of $260,000 from increasing recycling last year, $360,000 from increased trash-fee revenues and $60,000 because the city renegotiated its recycling contract based on increased paper costs.

However, Hayes said it will cost more like $894,000, not $680,000, to keep Cove open — which means there's more than a $200,000 difference between the two plans.

The discrepancy has to do with transportation costs that Hayes said will increase by about $200,000 in implementing the plan to only close one school. There are also other hidden costs, like not cutting as many teachers with the mayor's five-grammar-school model, as well as concerns about how McKeown students would be redistricted, especially when it comes to balancing free and reduced-price lunch kids throughout the district.

School Committee members will hash out the details at a meeting, tentatively scheduled for 7:30 Tuesday night at City Hall, and eventually someone will move to vote on one of the plans. If it doesn't pass, they'll vote on the other plan.

If neither passes, "I'll lock the doors until we agree on something," Cesa said. "We have to come to a consensus."