By Suzanne Laurent
Staff writer
Fri, May 16 2008 LONDONDERRY — School Board members will set conditions under which they would be willing to meet with the Town Council to discuss ways the boards could save taxpayers' money. But the board has yet to commit to the meeting, proposed by School Board member Steve Young, who hopes the Town Council and School Board, with the town manager and superintendent, can find five substantial items or areas where the two sides of town government could cooperate to find savings. "We have studied, we have talked about and we have had subcommittees about cooperating or even combining functions on both sides of the house. We have talked about it in the grocery store, on the street, at Old Home Day and on the campaign trail. There is no need to continue to study this." Young, at the School Board's April 22 meeting, presented the idea in response to a Town Council goal to work with the school district to identify common areas for streamlining or consolidating the school and municipal budgets. Young suggested that the School Board take its five ideas to Superintendent Nate Greenberg and the Town Council do the same with Town Manager Dave Caron. "I want this to be an action-oriented session," Young said. "I'll give you a specific example. The energy savings in the school district. We talked about that with the town and it hasn't been implemented. Hundreds of thousands of dollars that we can save the community." Taxpayers aren't concerned about whose budget the money comes from, as long as there are savings, Young said. "Many do not know we are separate forms of government and most in town do not care, nor should they," Young said. "They expect leadership and solutions from those they elected to serve them." School Board Chairman George Herrmann and board members Ron Campo and John Robinson were amenable to Young's suggestion. Member Ben Parker, however, wanted more specifics before agreeing to a meeting. "I would like to talk about it," Parker said. "This topic has come up over and over. Can you readily identify an area that would save the town and school district ... a significant saving?" Parker said if the objective is to save $1 million, he is on board. "If it's $5,000, (the superintendent) can take care of it," he said. "I'm opposed to a fishing expedition. Or looking for some specific golden goose that doesn't exist." Greenberg said if there were to be a meeting such as the one suggested by Young, there would have to be a sufficient money-saving goal to warrant joint action. "Yeah, we can buy copy paper and toner together," he said. "We don't need a big action plan." Robinson said town-school cooperation is not unheard of. The town and school district worked on the DARE program together, for example. School business administrator Peter Curro said money could be saved by buying items like copy paper collaboratively. Campo said information technology and facility management are two areas that duplicate services in town. However, council Chairman Marty Bove, liaison to the School Board, said information technology is a tricky issue. "Not every system the town and school district are using is compatible," he said, which could limit the possible savings. Herrmann said conditions for a joint meeting would be decided at another meeting of the School Board. "We need to make the meeting happen as soon as we can," he said.
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