School Officials Request Delay On Building And Grounds Plan

MASHPEE- School officials said on Wednesday night that they are not ready to support a plan to transfer the responsibility for maintenance of school buildings and grounds to the Mashpee Department of Public Works.
The transfer has already been approved by voters, but it will be up to the Mashpee Board of Selectmen whether it wants to include a detailed plan for the change on the October Town Meeting warrant.
School officials, including Superintendent Ann M. Bradshaw and Mashpee School Committee Chairman MaryRose Grady, said they support the transfer in general, but they are wary of how it will be carried out and if it will be in compliance with a state requirement that schools maintain authority over their own custodians.
Ms. Grady asked that the transfer be postponed until the two sides can come to a specific agreement.
Ralph Marcelli, a school committee member, said, “The devil is really in the details for this.”
The details, however, do not need to be included as part of the package of Town Meeting articles that will certify a new organizational plan for town government, Town Manager Joyce M. Mason said. Because the consolidation of all building and grounds maintenance under the DPW is required under the town charter, no Town Meeting vote is needed on the transfer. School and town officials only need to agree to a memorandum of understanding on those details before the transfer is set to take place at the turn of the fiscal year next summer. An overall organizational plan and three related bylaws will be part of the upcoming warrant.
Ms. Mason said selectmen will be deciding in the next two weeks whether to include an organizational chart laying out the bureaucratic hierarchy of the DPW as part of the package of warrant articles. Ms. Mason said she included the chart in the documents proposed for the warrant only because she wanted the public to see the full breadth of changes under consideration.
The chart, which was developed by a small group of town officials, including Ms. Mason, Selectman Theresa M. Cook, Mashpee Finance Committee member Charles E. Gasior, and Assistant Town Manager René M. Read, with little consultation from school officials, shows a school “facilities supervisor” reporting directly to the DPW director. The DPW director in turn answers to the town manager.
Ms. Mason said one major point of contention, however, has been whether the superintendent should maintain “hiring and firing” power over the custodians. In arguing against it, Ms. Mason said it would be equivalent to having “two bosses.”
Ms. Mason said most of the other points raised so far by school officials, like pledging to make school athletic fields a priority, should not be a problem.
Town Counsel Patrick J. Costello said Ms. Grady’s arguments about the legality of the transfer are moot in light of the attorney general’s approval of the “clear and unambiguous” language in the town charter mandating the town to bring school building and grounds under the supervision of the DPW. The charter empowers the town manager to make the change unilaterally, after consultation with the superintendent.
Ms. Grady, however, said the superintendent was not involved in developing the plan.
Ms. Grady and Ms. Bradshaw said they have developed a long list of other concerns that they would like to see addressed before they support the plan.
Both women expressed concern about signing off on a plan before they know specifics.
Ms. Mason pledged to continue to meet with school officials to try to address their issues before Town Meeting.
John J. Cahalane, chairman of the board of selectmen, said other details, like how the town will take over control of the wastewater treatment plant at Mashpee High School, also still need to be ironed out.
In an interview separate from the public hearing, Ms. Mason said the requirement to transfer maintenance of all town property does not include land owned by the Mashpee Conservation Commission.
No one from the general public attended Wednesday’s public hearing, which also covered the overall organizational plan, released to the public for the first time this week. The hearing was held by the board of selectmen, and included a quorum of the school committee and the finance committee.
Among the changes included in the plan, most of which have already been carried out, are creating an assistant town manager position that includes direct oversight of the financial departments; creating a Geographic Information Systems administrator position under the Informational Technology department; changing the personnel office into a human resources department that will manage benefits administration and payroll; removing the assistant director of department of public works position; and bringing the shellfish constable and harbormaster positions under the police department.
The IT and human resources departments would be reclassified as “support” departments, and hold positions somewhat below other department heads.
The changes are essentially cost-neutral, Ms. Mason said, and other than the building and grounds transfer she does not see them stirring much controversy at Town Meeting.
Ms. Mason said the plan is available for the public to pick up at Mashpee Town Hall and any comments are welcome.