Followup on New Longmeadow Town Bylaw….

In accordance with the new town bylaw 2-320, copies of the current “negotiated labor contracts” were deposited at Storrs Library. I spent time last Thursday at Storrs Library to determine what information could be found.

Here is a list of the current labor contracts that are available at Storrs Library...

Longmeadow Education Association
1. Unit A- 9/01/09 - 8/31/11
2. Unit B- 7/01/09 - 6/30/11
3. Unit D- 7/01/09 - 6/30/11
4. Unit E- 8/31/09 – 8/31/11
5. Unit F (educational assistants)- 9/01/09 - 8/31/11
6. Unit H (custodians)- 7/01/09 - 6/30/11

Longmeadow Organization of Clerical Workers
(full time clerical employees for Town Clerk, DPW, Police, etc.
7/01/05 – 6/30/08- contract has expired

Longmeadow Local 1903 Int’l Assn. of Fire Fighters
7/01/08 – 6/30/09- contract has expired

Longmeadow Int’l Brotherhood of Police Officers, Chapter 370
7/01/08 – 6/30/09- contract has expired

Longmeadow Police Supervisors
7/01/09 – 6/30/12

Longmeadow police officers, fire fighters and clerical workers have not completed collective bargaining contract negotiations with the town.

Longmeadow teachers, educational assistants and custodians as well as the Longmeadow Police Supervisors have existing contracts- each with a 0% COLA. All of the existing Longmeadow Teachers contracts expire during FY2011. For those who are interested, here is the Longmeadow teachers' salary structure including steps, education and longevity factors.

I did not read each of these contracts in their entirety but plan to do so at some time in the near future.

The current employment contracts for the Town Manager and School Superintendent which were of greatest interest to me were not included with the contracts at Storrs Library.

The new bylaw says “negotiated labor contracts” – which must have been narrowly interpreted so as to not include the TM and Superintendent’ contracts.

I have subsequently obtained copies of both contracts which are public documents and plan to share details and commentary in my next blog post.

New Longmeadow Town Bylaw

A revised version of the Longmeadow's General Bylaws including amendments approved at the 2010 Annual Town Meeting and approved by the Massachusetts Attorney General is now available for review on the town website (click here to view). 

One of the new amendments (Article 2- Chapter 3) which was on the 2010 ATM warrant by voter petition and championed by town resident Joe Occhiuti is shown below:

2-320. Contract Negotiations.
All current and future negotiated labor contracts shall be announced in our local newspaper(s) no later than two weeks of said settlement. A hard copy of all negotiated labor contracts shall be deposited in their entirety at Storrs Library.

In this morning's Springfield Republican there was a business article about the contract for Amherst's new Town Manager including compensation details.

Click here to read the full newspaper article.





This new town bylaw would require the Town of Longmeadow to publish details of all negotiated labor contracts as they are approved.  Hopefully, this would include contracts for the new School Superintendent, Town Manager, etc as well as Longmeadow Teachers contract, etc.

The new bylaw states that all current contracts should be deposited for public view at Storrs Library as well.

One employee contract of interest is that for the new School Superintendent. 

On May 11 town voters at the Annual Town Meeting approved the FY11 School Department budget (dated 2/22/10) which included a Superintendent salary of $135,000- a 9% increase from the FY10 Superintendent salary of $123,600. 

On June 14 the School Committee (see meeting minutes) approved a revised FY11 budget with the Superintendent's salary set at $155,000- a 25.4% increase over FY10.  With the current Longmeadow teacher's contract set at a 0% COLA for the next two years, a 25.4% increase seems a bit too much- particularly given the "as advertised" credentials and experience of the new superintendent.

According to School Committee meeting minutes (February 22, 2010) Marie Doyle had accepted the town's offer of employment as Longmeadow School Superintendent pending successful contract negotiations.  In a March 22 SC executive session, a contract proposal was discussed and approved in open session for presentation to Ms. Doyle (see meeting minutes) and execution by Chairperson Mary Vogel.  However, I could not find any SC minutes for subsequent meetings documenting whether or not the contract was accepted by Ms. Doyle and there was no mention of additional negotiations.

Question: When was the new School Superintendent's salary finalized?

 For most people who followed the FY11 budget process, the Superintendent's salary for FY11 was $135,000 since this was in the budget information provided to town voters at the ATM and it appeared (though not reported on the School Department website or by local newspapers) that the School Superintendent had been hired prior to the ATM. 

This is a mute question since Massachusetts state law requires the town voters and ATM to approve a total school budget only- not line by line. The SC is certainly within their authority to line shift the dollars to increase the Superintendent's salary (which they apparently did at their June 14 meeting).

I may be all wrong in my thinking.... so adding a copy of the current Superintendent's Contract to Storrs Library will restore my confidence that the development of our budgets (town government + schools) are done in an open and transparent manner. 

Based upon implementation of the new town bylaw I expect that all negotiated labor contracts (which I assume means Town Manager, Longmeadow Teachers, etc., Police, Fire....) will be made public "in their entirety" at Storrs Library in the very near future.

Thank you Joe Occhiuti!

A good start for Longmeadow's town website

but there is still a long way to go!

There are now announcements from Town Hall being posted on the town website- www.Longmeadow.org. A new notice was also posted today that the Town Manager’s Website TaskForce will asking town residents how to improve the website and what other electronic services should be offered.

Now that I know that there are some people at Town Hall reading the Buzz blog and reacting to at least some of my comments, I would like to offer the following suggestions….

1. Keep the town announcements and event calendar timely and up-to-date.
   Town residents want to know about street repaving work and other project work “before” it begins. There is currently some street reconstruction work going on this week on Longfellow Street. I know that Center School sent out letters to parents but not all of us have kids attending Center School so a town wide announcement would have been useful.
   
   The new agenda “tab” on the Calendar solves the "readability" problem that I mentioned in my last post.... thanks!
   
   
2. Meeting minutes…. I attended last week’s School Building Committee meeting and posted some notes here on the Buzz. At this meeting on Sept 15 (8 days ago) there were 4 sets of minutes approved dating back to May. Why are they not posted on the School Building Department website?
   
   How about Select Board meeting minutes? There is only one new set of minutes posted for the combined School Committee/ SB meeting on September 20, but where are all of the other ones for meetings this past summer?
   
   How about meeting minutes for all of the other boards/ committees/ commissions?
   
   The new Massachusetts Open Meeting Law (Section 22 (c), effective July 1) states: “Minutes of all open sessions shall be created and approved in a timely manner. The minutes of an open session, if they exist and whether approved or in draft form, shall be made available upon request by any person within 10 days.
   
   The new www.Longmeadow.org website should provide town residents with easy access to all meeting minutes. The Town Manager and “webmaster” should actively solicit this information. Posting of meeting minutes 2-6 months after the meeting has occurred usually provides information with very little worthwhile value.
   
   Perhaps “draft” meeting minutes could be posted (and labeled as DRAFT) as soon as they are available possibly within days of a meeting.  (A former Longmeadow School Superintendent (Tom McGarry) posted his meeting "notes" on the town website within a week of the meeting.) This would permit town residents to better understand what is happening and attend the next meeting or write email if necessary to provide their comments. This would be a large step forward in communicating with town residents.
   
   
3. There is an organization called Common Cause of Massachusetts which actively promotes better e-Government. Each year they evaluate (and re-evaluate) official city and town government websites in Massachusetts using an established set of criteria and recognize cities and towns in Massachusetts accordingly for their efforts. Through my work as town webmaster Longmeadow has received this e-Government award for the past three years. There is a “with distinction” award designation which Longmeadow has not received because some documents have been missing from the website. Receiving the e-Government “with distinction” award should be a goal of the new website team.
   
   If Longmeadow were being evaluated today by Common Cause, it is likely that Longmeadow’s town website would not receive the e-
   Government award.
   


4. There was a strong interest by three members of the Select Board (Aseltine-Barkett-Swanson) to take control of the website and convert it to an “official town government” website. That makes a lot of sense since significant taxpayer money will now be used to support the website.  Providing technical support for community organizations including website development and other needs should be considered outside the scope of the website.
   
   LongmeadowBiz, LLC has already made an offer to provide Storrs Library with free website support but it has been refused.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes the Website Taskforce to make their final recommendations to the Select Board.  Hopefully, in the meantime there will be continued effort to keep the website up to date.  Town residents have been accustomed to better service.

What’s happened to communication in Longmeadow?

The Longmeadow town website- http://www.longmeadow.org/  once acclaimed for its outstanding delivery of information to town residents has seen a significant deterioration during the past two months. Anyone who has followed the “insubordinate volunteer” incident here on the Buzz blog or in the local newspapers is aware of the town website situation. The town website has now been under renovation for almost two months and Select Board has not as yet developed a plan to provide town residents with an effective website and access to up-to-date information. At last week’s Select Board meeting it was reported that the Town Manager’s Website Task Force had met for the first time but no update was presented.

There have been efforts to post announcements for town residents on the town website as shown below in a snapshot from earlier today.

However, three of the four notices currently posted are out of date. The new "town calendar” on the website homepage provides a somewhat better attempt with posting of town govt meeting dates but the accompanying agendas are sometimes difficult to view completely or print.  I rate this effort at a C- and is not what town residents have come to expect from our town website.

I have attempted to continue posting town government announcements on the Longmeadow Community Bulletin Board and Town Calendar as I had been doing for the past five years. Both of these free web based resources can be found on LongmeadowBiz.com.  Some time ago, I made a simple request to the Town Manager and the various department heads that LongmeadowBiz be added as a media outlet on the distribution lists for town press releases. That never happened and last week I found out why.

Rob Aseltine, Longmeadow Select Board chairman, had unilaterally directed  Town Manager Robin Crosbie to block any press releases or event information from being sent to LongmeadowBiz.  This was done without formal discussion with the other members of the Select Board.

In addition, all visible links to these free town resources (Bulletin Board and Town Calendar) have been removed from the town website which has caused further frustration for town residents in their search for the latest news.

There are upcoming flu shot clinics planned by the Board of Health, Maple Road is being repaved soon, high school building project construction will begin, etc…. How are town residents going to be informed?

This continued retribution by Mr. Aseltine against me for my blog posts in early June regarding the School Building project has clearly resulted in poorer communication between the town and its residents.  His effort is obviously directed toward my LongmeadowBiz, LLC enterprise and he is doing whatever he can through his position as an elected town official to disable its effectiveness and popularity.

If you are concerned by the actions of our Select Board chairman, please send an email to him with your comments. His email address is: raseltine@longmeadow.org  . Be sure to copy in the other members of the Select Board and the Town Manager. Their email addresses are shown below:

rbarkett@longmeadow.org , cswanson@longmeadow.org , psantaniello@longmeadow.org  and mgold@longmeadow.org .

Be sure to visit the Longmeadow Community Bulletin Board and the Town Calendar on LongmeadowBiz.com to stay connected with what is going on in Longmeadow. I will try my best to make available to Longmeadow residents all town government and other related information.

School Building Committee Meeting- 9/15/10

Because there has been very little publicity about the activities of the School Building Committee (SBC), I decided to attend their regular monthly meeting on Wednesday night to find out what is happening. As I expected, there were very few town residents in attendance (total = 2, counting myself).

Meeting minutes have not been posted on the SBC website (http://www.longmeadow.org/sbc/minutes.htm) since March 16 and as of Wednesday afternoon there were no additional hardcopy meeting minutes available at the Town Clerk’s office. I find this lack of meeting minutes very disturbing given the new Massachusetts Open Meeting Law which became effective July 1.  According to the official guide from the Attorney General’s office…. the law requires that existing minutes must be created and approved in a timely manner.

Meeting Highlights

The first item on the SBC meeting agenda was approval of SBC meeting minutes for May 13, June 2, June 17 and August 19.  A little less than the “timely manner” as required by the new Open Meeting Law.  I'm guessing that this agenda item may have been a direct response to Mark Gold’s request to Christine Swanson (SBC co-chair) at Monday’s Select Board meeting (9/13/10) to post overdue SBC meeting minutes.  With the current town website situation I would not want to guess when these “newly approved” minutes might be available online.  Hopefully, the content, completeness and quality of these latest meeting minutes will be improved vs. the minutes posted for the November 2009 time period when the MSBA to SBC correspondence was hidden from public view.

Design Update

Exterior Walls/ Flooring/ Interior Walls/ Paint/ Glazing and other material choices affecting cost that have been made by project work groups were reviewed with the SBC. These choices are needed to prepare the full project specification package. Other choices such final wall or carpet color can be changed later since they are not likely to affect final cost.

Project Schedule Update

There will be some early project work in Nov/ Dec for the relocation of existing school utilities including phone, gas, water and power lines. This early work is necessary because most of these utilities are connected to the current HS through areas where the new school will be built.

This early project construction work will create a signficant loss of HS parking spaces resulting in the need to identify other nearby alternatives and/or the creation of a new temporary lot. Bliss Tennis Courts parking and the west side of the Longmeadow Shops were mentioned as possible choices.

Feb 2011- Start demolition of the existing school department building wing

May 2011- New HS building construction begins

Comment

Here is an interesting question…. The School Department will be relocated to space available in Wolf Swamp Road School and Center School after this space has been renovated. The original plan called for the School Dept to relocated to existing space in the 1971 wing after it had been renovated this fall.

What happened to the original plan? It looks like there will be additional costs involved with this revised plan….

How much will the Center School/ Wolfswamp School office renovation cost and will that cost be absorbed by the HS building project?

The School Dept will be relocated for an extended period of time….up to three years according to a MassLive report. It sounds like there may be a significant cost involved with this renovation.  These costs should not be absorbed by the current school or town operating budgets and should be included with the new school building project.

Other Agenda Items

During this discussion a number of ideas were suggested by SBC members. Highlights included the following:

• Interest was expressed in the incorporation of a cell phone tower within the new building structure as a means to develop rental income for the town (or school dept). One estimate of potential revenue from tenant wireless carrier(s) was $40K/ year.
• One committee member- Roland Joyal highlighted the fact the recent local new high school project bids (Putnam HS in Springfield + Wilbraham/ Hampden Regional HS) have come in much lower than originally estimated because of the poor economy and low construction activity. (According to the Springfield Republican the winning bid for the WHRHS project was $53.6 M vs. original estimate of $82M). Mr. Joyal predicted that the bids for the new Longmeadow HS project will also be much lower than the $78 million estimate. He recommended that the SBC consider other project uses for the predicted savings. He proposed inclusion of a artificial turf field to to replace the current turf field at the football stadium. One cost estimate for this option was $750,000.
  
  The current high school practice field (natural grass) will likely need significant renovation after building construction is completed and there are project monies being included for this purpose. It was suggested during this discussion to consider making this an artificial turf field rather than a natural grass field.
• Co-chair Mr. Barkett remarked that these items would need to be included in the “add alternates” section of the bid package for the project. An “add alternate” is a secondary more expensive option that may be considered during the construction phase.

Comment

The project design team has been conducting “value engineering” meaning a “systematic application of recognized techniques which identify the function of a product or service, and provide the necessary function reliably at lowest overall cost.”

Longmeadow voters approved the construction of a new HS building project with an estimated cost of $78.1 million. If the winning project bid comes in at a lower price tag say $62 million, the SBC should not take that as a cue to include additional elements (ex. artificial turf field(s)) because there is money available to be spent without the need for approval by town voters.

I believe that the SBC has a “fidiciary” responsibility to town residents to build the new high school as originally approved by town voters at the lowest possible cost.
_______________________________________

I am planning to attend the SBC monthly meetings on a regular basis and post my meeting "notes" here on the Buzz to help town residents keep abreast of the high school project activities.

As always, I welcome SBC co-chairs to "set the record straight" if there are errors in my reporting or commentary.  Other town residents are also invited to participate.

A New “Game plan” for FY12?

At the Select Board meeting on August 23 there was a series of discussions that appeared to be directed at developing a new “game plan” for the upcoming FY12 budget process (see recent Buzz post- Select Board Sets FY12 Goals for meeting details).

I believe that there is a high probability that the new “Aseltine-Barkett-Swanson (A-B-S) majority” will attempt to “marginalize” and negate the influence of both Gold and Santaniello during the upcoming FY12 budget setting process.

Here are some highlights from the recent SB goal setting meeting that led me to this conclusion….

1. The formation of a financial “subcommittee” (similar to that employed by the School Committee) was proposed to assist with the development of the town’s annual budget and with other financial issues that face the SB. Aseltine and Barkett both expressed dissatisfaction with last year’s budget process and wanted to change the methodology.
   
   This new subcommittee would "assist" the Town Manager by setting specific goals and then helping to work out the details. It would consist of only 2 SB members since 3 or more would represent a board quorum. SB members who are not on this subcommittee could attend as town residents but would not be able to participate directly.
   
   [The Town Charter states that the Town Manager not the Select Board nor this proposed SB financial subcommittee has the prime responsibility for developing a town wide budget including the school department. So what exactly will be the role of this new financial subcommittee?]
   
   
2. Barkett also expressed a desire to rein in the activities of any “rogue” board members (was he referring to Gold + Santaniello?) who might directly interact with department heads to ask budget or other related questions. Aseltine and Barkett both favored a new SB protocol that required all information requests or questions be channeled through the SB chair and then through the Town Manager who would then ask the Dept. Head for the information. If such a protocol is adopted, members who are not on the proposed SB financial subcommittee will likely have a much more difficult time accessing budget related information since they will not be able to directly ask town department heads (Finance Director, DPW Director, Fire Chief, etc.).

During last year’s budget process, Gold was a key player in developing a FY11 budget compromise that balanced the needs of our town and which was approved at the Annual Town Meeting. He played an important role in the negotiation of a new trash collection contract that significantly reduced costs and improved service. He also identified an opportunity for a subsidized energy conservation program for town buildings that will significantly reduce energy costs.

It’s interesting that both Aseltine and Barkett voted against the FY11 budget that was approved at the Annual Town Meeting. At the time of the SB budget vote Aseltine stated that he thought the proposed town side of the budget did not go far enough in cutting town employee headcounts, increasing outsourcing or improving the sustainability of the town side of the budget for future years.

I believe that this new game plan (formation of a financial subcommittee + adoption of new information request protocol) that is supported by the A-B-S majority will be used as a strategy to marginalize the efforts of both Gold and Santaniello and shift the town’s financial resources towards the school side of the budget.

Barkett and Swanson are also the co-chairs for the School Building Committee and each has a large important commitment to the new high school project in addition to being SB members. It would seem prudent for the SB to appoint Gold and/or Santaniello to this financial subcommittee given the large amount of work involved in developing the town budget.

I hope that my speculations are proven wrong and I will watch to see what happens….

I strongly recommend that all town residents stay tuned as well.

Cost of Technology- Part II

The Town of Longmeadow has now been without a useful website to share information with town residents for over 5 weeks. Although a "new" town calendar has been added to the homepage of http://www.longmeadow.org/ , not much new information has been added to the website and it is still "Under Renovation".   Town residents can only guess what has been happening at the School Building Committee meetings since meeting minutes have not been posted since mid-March and they are not televised by LCTV.

Earlier in May a proposal was submitted to the town by a company called Virtual Town Hall (VTH) which provides website solutions.  VTH provides support and services for over 300 counties/ cities/ towns/ K-12 schools in 13 states.  This includes over 125 cities and towns in Massachusetts including Greenfield, South Hadley and Lenox.  If you take a look at these Mass town website examples, you find that they are very comprehensive and have many similar features.

VTH has proposed to deliver a turnkey solution for Longmeadow including a custom design and migration of information from the existing Longmeadow.org website. 

Below is a summary of the costs from this proposal.

One time design + development including training- $6500
Annual website hosting, maintenance and support- $3500
Total first year charge- $10,000
Subsequent years charge- $3500

The proposed development- implementation timeline is 10-12 weeks.

Sounds like a plan... but wait....

There is one important aspect to this proposal that needs to be seriously considered by the Select Board before they decide to embark on this route:

According to VTH's President, Millard Rose, a town the size of Longmeadow would typically have 10 "content managers" (which I assume means designated town employees) with responsibilities to provide updates for their portion of the website.  For example, the Town Clerk's office would have a designated employee that would post updates relating to elections, voter registration, etc. while someone in the DPW would post street closings, hydrant flushing notices, etc.  and so on...

Training for these "content managers" is included in the above pricing. Those employees who will be selected as "content managers" will be glad to hear that there is no need to learn HTML (or other webmaster skills) and that the Content Management System (CMS) is very easy to learn.

In other words, the $10,000 first year charges and the subsequent $3500 annual maintenance charge does not include website updates.

With all of the town employee reductions that have been made in the past couple of years, how will this increased workload be absorbed?

Mr. Barkett also wants to include website support for Storrs Library and community organizations as part of this new website direction.... at what cost?

Let's hope that one month from today our Select Board is not still forming a task force to study the situation or evaluating options and that there is an actual plan in place for a new Longmeadow website.... be it http://www.longmeadow.gov/ or http://www.longmeadow.org/

Select Board Sets FY12 Goals

An “offsite” Select Board (SB) meeting was held at the First Church of Christ (Parlor Room) in Longmeadow on August 23 to discuss FY12 goals. It lasted over 3½ hours. Only a few town residents attended the meeting. All SB members + the Town Manager were present.

Below is a video (Part I + Part II) of the meeting…. (using Windows Media Player will allow you to skip and listen to various portions of the meeting).

Select Board Meeting- 8-23-10, Part I

Select Board Meeting- 8-23-10, Part II

Summary

A large portion of the discussion involved mechanics of how the SB and individual board members would interact with each other and the Town Manager during the coming year.

Use of subcommittees (financial + operational) were proposed to facilitate a large portion of the SB’s work. These subcommittees (2 members max. each) would assess issues and prepare recommendations for the entire SB to discuss and to make decisions.

There was also a discussion about creating a new town committee that would be responsible for developing a much overdue long range capital plan to address Longmeadow’s failing water/sewer, street and building infrastructure. The need for additional school capital improvements in addition to the new high school was mentioned several times.

The need to continue reducing the cost of town government operations through improved operating efficiencies, productivity improvements, increased outsourcing, regionalization of operations and lower rates of increase for employee compensation and health care was highlighted. It was suggested that the SB consider the use of an outside consultant to identify key cost savings opportunities within town operations.

Additional highlights/ details of the meeting included:

• Formation of a financial “subcommittee” to assist with the development of the town annual budget and other financial issues that face the SB was proposed. Aseltine and Barkett both expressed dissatisfaction with last year’s budget process and wanted to change the methodology. A proposal was made to change the format of how the budget is developed by creating a “financial subcommittee” (similar to that employed by the School Committee). This new subcommittee would "assist" the Town Manager by setting specific goals and then helping to work out the details. This financial subcommittee could consist of only 2 SB members since 3 or more would represent a board quorum. 
  
  At times during this discussion the proposal for a new financial subcommittee seemed to be in conflict with the Town Charter since the Town Manager (not the SB) has the primary responsibility for preparing the town budget.
• Barkett expressed a desire to rein in the activities of any “rogue” board members (Gold ? + Santaniello ?) who directly interact with department heads to obtain budget or other information. Aseltine and Barkett both favored a board protocol that required all information requests or questions be channeled through the SB chair and then through the Town Manager who would then ask the Dept. Head for the information. They believed that this would make for more efficient use of town employees' time and reduce redundant requests. Neither Gold and Santaniello supported that idea because they felt at times they needed to make direct contact with Department heads in order to have their budget related or other questions answered.
  
  This proposal appeared to be directed at strengthening the chairman’s control of individual SB members direct interaction with town employees. Barkett pointed out that during last year’s budget process, it was Gold who acted as an “financial subcommittee” of one. This initiative by Gold provided a route to a budget compromise which was ultimately supported by the majority of the SB. Interestingly enough, it was Aseltine and Barkett who voted NO on this budget that was passed at the Annual Town Meeting.
• Consistency of financial reporting between the school department and town government was also highlighted as a strong need. Also, an improved presentation of the budget to the town at the Annual Town Meeting will be sought.
• A concern: New subcommittee meetings must be public meetings and will require meeting minutes to be written and posted.
• Formation of an “operational” subcommittee…. again this discussion appeared to be one that involved reining in direct contact with town department heads or town employees by individual SB members…
• Aseltine, Barkett and Swanson favored the subcommittee approach while Gold and Santaniello had significant reservations.
• Formation of a town committee to evaluate the town’s long range capital needs including buildings, water/ sewer and roads. Santaniello suggested that this committee be formed without elected officials to ensure that the committee’s report is unbiased. Swanson objected strongly stating that she didn’t think a committee of non-elected volunteers would be able to accomplish much.
• A proposed consolidation of the School and Town IT departments was discussed in order to reduce costs and develop synergies.
• Aseltine proposed that the SB go paperless using Googlesites (GoogleDocs?) so that the volume of material printed for each meeting could be dramatically reduced. In addition, information can be more readily shared with town residents if it were available online. In a related matter, there was no discussion about plans or timeline for resolution of the town’s Longmeadow.org website problems.

Cost of Technology

The Longmeadow School Department recently introduced a new website developed using a GoogleSites template (a free service of Google) that allows for unique webpage customization and provides for a robust content management system. 

Below is the GoogleSites template...

Here is the homepage for the new Longmeadow School Department website....

According to some early reviews, the new Longmeadow School Dept website is easy to navigate and has a built-in feature that allows approved users in the school department (school committee members ?) to add information.  However, at the present time there appears to be only one person who routinely updates the website and adds information to it and so the burden is not shared broadly.

I must agree that the "look and feel" of this website is quite professional and is capable of providing easy access to information, particularly if you use the website search tool that can be found at the top of the homepage. 

I used this search tool to find the FY11 Longmeadow School Department Budget and discovered some interesting facts.  Below is a snapshot of one section of the FY11 budget that reveals that there is a $1545 stipend being paid for managing the BBH school website...

I also found corresponding stipends for each of the other schools + the school department adding up to $10,815 for FY11.  There were also similar budget items for FY09 and FY10 and for prior years.  I believe that these line items have been in place for at least 5 years so the Longmeadow School Department has spent ~ $50K maintaining the individual schools and school department websites.

With the current budget contraints I would urge the Longmeadow School Committee to make sure that these budget dollars ($10,815/ year) are used effectively.  I strongly recommend that it consider integrating the individual school websites with the new School Department website.  The burden of updating and adding new content could then be shared broadly by School Department employees.  This change would dramatically improve the appearance and usefulness of the many different Longmeadow school websites.

Letter to the Editor

The following letter to the editor appeared in the August 19 edition of the Longmeadow News and is reprinted here at the request of its author.
_____________________________________________

Dear Editor,

As a regular columnist for the former town website, and a past columnist for the Longmeadow News, I am in a unique position. I have worked with Jim Moran in his capacity as an excellent webmaster, for over a decade. He was and is always professional and helpful. Never did I question his ability as an un-paid volunteer. He was never an employee of the town, so it is more than odd that an elected official called him insubordinate. Jim ran a great website full of useful information for town residents and the world at large. He always was open to suggestions and made improvements to the site very often to make it more user friendly to all. I respect him and his work.

Did our elected officials ever visit the website? If so, they would have noticed the "material" in question was on a link to LongmeadowBuzz not the town website itself. It all makes me wonder why anyone even bothers to give their time to be a thankless volunteer in this distrusting day and age. This town and its organizations and groups have been run by town volunteers for over a century! These people help with the schools, historical groups and senior center not to mention the elected officials who work long hours tirelessly to be professional in unpaid positions! I hope people still get involved with our town, but why do it for free? Now do we have to pay someone to be webmaster? And where are we getting the funds for that? Can the select board please apologize for whatever misunderstanding occurred. Jim has now moved on - its too late to re-hire him as a volunteer.

Is this the way to treat a Citizen of the Year?

Our website should bring people together, not tear them apart!

Good work Jim! It has been a pleasure to work with you for the past eleven years, and THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Betsy H. Port
Longmeadow resident and volunteer