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Re: Alternate Facts Don’t Cut It in Melrose

She is correct: There is absolutely NO REASON to TRUST any of the figures, data, statements, etc. of any Melrose official, elected or hired, except Ms. M on the BOA. The rest are fully in the tank, all yammering the same bogus talking points, and all arrogant in their assertions. The CONTEMPT demonstrated by our city officials for the citizens they are supposed to serve, for the law, for common sense and decency, for the children this override is supposedly about, permeates every word they say and every action they are taking. They should be ashamed, but apparently they are incapable of this. Their contempt is only rivaled by their juvenile attitudes and sanctimony.

Re: Alternate Facts Don’t Cut It in Melrose

Untrustworthy Officials
She is correct: There is absolutely NO REASON to TRUST any of the figures, data, statements, etc. of any Melrose official, elected or hired, except Ms. M on the BOA. The rest are fully in the tank, all yammering the same bogus talking points, and all arrogant in their assertions. The CONTEMPT demonstrated by our city officials for the citizens they are supposed to serve, for the law, for common sense and decency, for the children this override is supposedly about, permeates every word they say and every action they are taking. They should be ashamed, but apparently they are incapable of this. Their contempt is only rivaled by their juvenile attitudes and sanctimony.
Once again Melrose is enduring a divisive override campaign geared towards a large annual cash infusion for the schools in perpetuity. Those promoting this referendum are using the same kinds of fear-mongering tactics as they did in their previous failed attempt. Sadly, there is now even less reason to believe the claims as before.

Re: Alternate Facts Don’t Cut It in Melrose

Previous Failed
Untrustworthy Officials
She is correct: There is absolutely NO REASON to TRUST any of the figures, data, statements, etc. of any Melrose official, elected or hired, except Ms. M on the BOA. The rest are fully in the tank, all yammering the same bogus talking points, and all arrogant in their assertions. The CONTEMPT demonstrated by our city officials for the citizens they are supposed to serve, for the law, for common sense and decency, for the children this override is supposedly about, permeates every word they say and every action they are taking. They should be ashamed, but apparently they are incapable of this. Their contempt is only rivaled by their juvenile attitudes and sanctimony.
Once again Melrose is enduring a divisive override campaign geared towards a large annual cash infusion for the schools in perpetuity. Those promoting this referendum are using the same kinds of fear-mongering tactics as they did in their previous failed attempt. Sadly, there is now even less reason to believe the claims as before.
from the M Free Press:

Opinion: Medeiros: Taxpayers need unobstructed view
Posted at 12:40 PM Updated at 12:41 PM

Submitted by Alderman Monica Medeiros.

Last November, I, as an Alderman, voted against moving the Mayor’s proposed $5.18 million tax override question forward. I felt the city had not been thorough enough in evaluating our financial picture, nor in considering the effects of adding these millions of dollars of new spending.

In preparing for this vote, I learned that our city had much bigger problems than I had suspected. Namely that the executives in our city government have failed to do any long term evaluation of our financial outlook.

I felt it critical to have a full understanding of the financial assumptions the city was making before I could vote to pass such a hefty burden on to seniors and families.

After asking Mayor Infurna for copies of any long range budget forecasts that had been prepared and used by the City of Melrose over the last five years, I was forced to appeal to the Secretary of State’s office for this information only to learn that no such documents exist.

The Mayor’s office directed me to a tool on our city website, “Visual Budget.” In the Aldermen meeting, I asked our CFO & Auditor Patrick Dello Russo if this was the tool he was using to make our predictions in terms of revenues and expenditures. His reply? “We don’t make predictions. This is not a magic show.”

Try as I might, I could not seem to match the “Visual Budget” figures to the actual budgets I had voted on. Days later, Kerriann Golden, our Assistant Auditor confirmed, “The last actual figures reflected are Fiscal 2016,” -- two full fiscal years behind.

The outdated “Visual Budget” data was not only a waste of thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on this service, but also so inaccurate that it was actually misleading to the public. Most importantly, it could not have been being used as an accurate tool for evaluating our city’s financial outlook by anyone including our city executives.

Melrose is at a crossroads. Real estate prices have skyrocketed to an all-time high. Many new families have chosen Melrose for its great schools, beautiful downtown and its relative affordability.

Conversely, many of our families, seniors and one-income households are struggling. Recently, a Melrose Housing Authority Commissioner testified at our meeting that the waitlist for housing of Melrose families, seniors, Veterans and the handicap is in the thousands.

Sadly, I hear from residents who are told if they can’t afford this increase, they should move along. But where will they go? After paying their taxes for years, volunteering in our community, donating to all kinds of causes, including our schools, they are told they haven’t paid their “fair share” and should move along. I can think of little that is so cruel.

Even for those of us who are working, many of us are only one lockout or government shutdown away from being in financial peril.

But regardless of income, every taxpayer deserves good fiscal management.

As an Alderman-at-Large, my job is to consider the big picture ramifications of our decisions, especially when it comes to spending and taxation. When it comes to the big picture, the taxpayers deserve an unobstructed view.

If our leaders are not looking forward to ensure we can sustain the costs associated with the hiring of nearly 30 new positions and school department raises (not teachers only) of nearly $2 million included in this proposal, every one of these positions is at risk.

Before final decisions are made, the voters also need to know that large expenditures are waiting in the wings. What’s not included in this override, may be most significant.

This proposed tax increase includes no money for any other city department other than the schools. Although $250,000 is included in the override for the loss of rent from Beebe School, no plan exists to bring this building back online and fund the staff, renovation nor utility costs. As we make room for some Melrose students, we will disrupt the lives of the 30 or so Melrose special needs children who currently attend the SEEM Collaborative who will be uprooted and bussed to a new school outside our city limits.

Plans are in the works for the rebuilding or repair of the police and fire stations, and renovations of the library. Whether or not this question passes, each of these is expected to be presented to the voters in the form of an increase above the Prop 2 ½ limit.

Like our taxpayers, our leaders need a panoramic view before they make decisions that affect individuals so significantly. Financial forecasting in budgeting has been considered a best practice for more than a decade. Melrose can do better. Before any tax increase is considered, our taxpayers deserve an objective analysis of our financial picture and an independent audit of our books.

Demand accountability. Vote NO.

Re: Alternate Facts Don’t Cut It in Melrose

How are they not going to allow seniors to not pay taxes if they need the money so badly? That’s thousands of dollars per pmyear per senior household they won’t be collecting.

Re: Alternate Facts Don’t Cut It in Melrose

Like our taxpayers, our leaders need a panoramic view before they make decisions that affect individuals so significantly.

Re: Alternate Facts Don’t Cut It in Melrose

Once again Melrose is enduring a divisive override campaign geared towards a large annual cash infusion for the schools in perpetuity. Those promoting this referendum are using the same kinds of fear-mongering tactics as they did in their previous failed attempt. Sadly, there is now even less reason to believe the claims as before.Facts Don’t Cut It

Re: Alternate Facts Don’t Cut It in Melrose

Facts Don’t Cut It
Once again Melrose is enduring a divisive override campaign geared towards a large annual cash infusion for the schools in perpetuity. Those promoting this referendum are using the same kinds of fear-mongering tactics as they did in their previous failed attempt. Sadly, there is now even less reason to believe the claims as before.Facts Don’t Cut It
https://patch.com/massachusetts/melrose/alternate-facts-don-t-cut-it-melrose

Alternate Facts Don’t Cut It in Melrose
Carrie Kourkoumelis, Melrose School Committee member 2010–2016

Once again Melrose is enduring a divisive override campaign geared towards a large annual cash infusion for the schools in perpetuity. Those promoting this referendum are using the same kinds of fear-mongering tactics as they did in their previous failed attempt. Sadly, there is now even less reason to believe the claims as before.

The school administration is largely made up of the same individuals, even after the 2016 findings of the United States Department of Education Office of Civil Rights condemning the administration for creating a “racially hostile environment,” among other disgraces. Instead of holding those accountable for harming students (and the entire community), the School Committee chose to lavish praise and salary raises on the administrative team. They simultaneously voted to use taxpayer dollars from the school budget to hire a public relations firm tasked with whitewashing the unprecedented and deeply shameful state of affairs. Rather than address the chronic poor decisions of our elected and hired officials, the override proponents seek to reward them further. This is ludicrous and unacceptable.

Whether or not the school system needs more money remains to be seen. There is no reason to trust that the facts and figures as published are anything but “alternate facts,” since this city governance has become increasingly less transparent and less competent in its financial reporting.

The claims about the supposedly insufficient teachers’ contract are equally galling. One need only recall the statements made by city officials after the most recent two contracts were approved in order to understand the breadth of the hypocrisy and disingenuous claims of the override proponents.

From the October 13, 2013 Melrose Free Press:

“Robert J. Dolan called the agreement the ‘richest contract the city has ever given’ to the teachers union….

The union approved the agreement by a vote of 195 to 35 last month, according to Dolan.

’We’re very happy with it,’ said School Committee chairwoman Kristin Thorp.

School Committee member Carrie Kourkoumelis said she voted against the contract because the committee did not receive a full draft of the agreement. … ’We have yet to see a fully integrated contract,’ Kourkoumelis said, noting the committee only received copies of memorandums of agreement and the old contract. … ‘I am also concerned about the terms of the agreement. We didn’t really have a discussion about where the funds are coming from, or what impacts come next.’”1

From the Jun 29, 2016 Melrose Free Press:

“’The focus of the contract is to live within our means, but also to invest in teachers and in particular teacher retention in lanes and steps,’ Dolan said. ‘I think both parties targeted that, and it was a very successful conclusion for teachers, for students and for taxpayers.”

’Those adjustments [the “steps” and “lanes” that determine teacher pay based on professional qualifications and experience]’ said School Committee Chair Margaret Driscoll, ‘are intended to “more competitively attract and retain teachers.’

Mayor Rob Dolan said the contract balances fiscal responsibility with a desire to keep good teachers in the district.”2

Simply put, if Melrose teachers are unhappy with their contract, they could have insisted on more acceptable terms from their negotiating team; they could have demanded that the inequities for veteran teachers at the top end of the steps and lanes be corrected, among other concerns. Of course, they can’t legitimately demand more money if they aren’t willing to amend the contract to require more of them. If city officials are dissatisfied with the contract terms, they have only themselves to blame. After both the 2013 and 2016 negotiations Mayor Dolan, Superintendent Taymore, and the chair of the School Committee lavished praise on themselves for their superb negotiations. Current officials come whining now to the taxpayers about what they claim as a woeful state of affairs, and we do not hold them accountable.

Similarly there is hand-wringing about the supposed overcrowding and enrollment problem in which officials promised in 2017 would be addressed by the $6.3 million bond for the modular classroom project (not including the cost for the consultants hired to study enrollment). Citizens were told adamantly that this project was the only fiscally responsible solution; that reopening the Beebe School was not possible; and that approving this project would ensure adequate space for Melrose students for years to come. 2017 wasn’t very long ago. Are the officials really so cynical that they believe residents have such a short memory and care so little about the truth?

If you doubt the lack of transparency, ask the schools for a full accounting of how much taxpayer money they spent to fund their stonewalling of federal investigators, while protecting themselves and the teacher (who told a black student to "go back to the plantation") so that she could receive her full retirement pension and the public would be kept away from the facts of the matter. You won't get the requested documents without a fight, if at all. I, as a member of the school committee, was not even informed that we were being investigated by the federal Office of Civil Rights until the superintendent ran out of discretionary funds and had to come to the Committee for many thousands of dollars to pay the stonewalling attorneys.

As a school committee member (sworn to protect confidentiality), I was forced to seek school district invoices in redacted form through the state Public Records request process—invoices that itemized the warrants I was expected to sign without knowing the reasons for the expenditures. Even my emails, sent to my official School Committee email account were only released to me through Public Records request. Then the superintendent tried to charge me $40,000 to receive them. So don't let anyone tell you there is transparency where Melrose school administration is concerned!

Treating the taxpayers this way is abusive of the public trust. The citizens of Melrose deserve much better. Perhaps the school system needs more funds, more space, and more highly qualified educators. Writing a Five-Million-Dollar annual check in the form of this tax override to the same individuals who have so thoroughly botched up the district with shameful illegal conduct, a revolving door of administrators and teachers, and incompetently managed district resources would only compound the foolishness. There needs to be a sea change towards more respectful treatment of the citizens and the truth. Only when there is meaningful accountability and transparency can a real discussion about our city’s finances and vision be held with any credibility.

1. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/north/2013/10/12/melrose-teacher-contract-calls-for-performance-evaluations-million-raises-over-years/IhMkeT47gnb3b5BEvz6MXO/story.html

2. https://patch.com/massachusetts/melrose/melrose-state-city-read-mayor-dolans-full-speech-here