Submitted by Veronica Chiavaroli, “The Op-Ed the Republican BET Should Write to GPS Parents”
In light of the recent public hearing regarding the Town budget, and specifically its capital outlay to the Greenwich Public Schools, the Republican BET Caucus wanted to reach out to the Greenwich Community to say one thing.
We have heard you, loud and clear, and we stand ready to work with all BET members to deliver.
Although financing a Central Middle School rebuild, concurrently with the renovation of Old Greenwich School and upgrades to Julian Curtiss, will require some creativity, we are confident that we and our Democratic colleagues will find the right path to accomplish these goals while avoiding any negative impact to our Town’s financial strength. While it is our responsibility to our community to make responsible fiscal decisions on behalf of Greenwich taxpayers, we also understand that when residents voice their concerns about something, for example, the way they have about the safety and accessibility of our public schools, we are obligated to take those concerns to heart and do what we can to address them.
The political divide in our country should not seep into our Town wide debates regarding the necessity to fund certain capital projects. This is not healthy for our community, and it tends to pit people against one another rather than bring people together. It is with that in mind that we as the BET have come to the decision to fully fund the capital projects at CMS, OGS and JC in this year’s budget.
One may wonder, how can the BET do this if we had previously stated we could not?
The short answer is – we could all along, but in doing so, the BET Republican Caucus was concerned about setting a bad precedent breaking with our pay as you go financing model. However, in hearing the concerns from our community, we have decided to work with our Democratic colleagues and if need be, extend our debt profile to 7-10 years, from 3-5, in order to facilitate delivering the needed remediation of our public school facilities. We view this as an opportunity, rather than simply a challenge. We also want to reassure our fiscally conservative residents that this minor extension of our debt maturity will not have an impact on our credit rating, our so-called “rainy day fund” or our ability to finance continual services for our community.
The debate over school capital throughout our community has been passionate and at times, divisive. We want to reassure parents that we are committed to resolving these issues and that together with BET Democrats, we will work toward making our school facilities everything one should expect in a Town like ours. Your BET Republican Caucus stands ready to do whatever is necessary to prioritize the capital needs of our schools, while delivering the necessary services elsewhere throughout our Town budget to make Greenwich the best place to live, work, raise a family and retire.
Sadly though, this is nothing but a late April Fool’s Day joke. Despite the more than 100 school supporters who packed the Town Hall Main Meeting Room this past Wednesday and made their pleas to Republican BET members, there is little likelihood that their pleas and stories resonated with the board sitting in front of them.
Central Middle School will continue to be pressured to reduce its size and budget to accommodate the wishes of BET Republicans. Old Greenwich School will enter another school year suffering from constant flooding, raw sewage backup into its classrooms, no ventilation, no fire sprinkler systems and no ADA compliance. And Julian Curtiss School will continue with minor ADA compliance bandaids that are not addressing the bigger issues that the school faces. Lastly, in the wake of the recent events in Nashville and other violent acts in educational facilities throughout our nation, many of our schools open daily without proper or necessary security to ensure the utmost safety of our students, faculty, and staff.
In one last plea to the BET on behalf of so many GPS families, faculty, and staff, please do the right thing on Tuesday and vote for our Town’s schools.