Letter: Letting the Record Speak for Itself

Editor's Note: For a full collection of letters regarding and from this candidate, click on his hyperlinked name at the bottom of this letter under "Related Topics."

I fully support funding the school budget for FY14 as proposed by Dr. Stein.

Let’s look at my record of action and deeds. The record speaks for itself.

1. In 2012, I met with Dr. Stein to help him analyze the actual school spending and budgets, as I am an accountant by profession. I suggested that he work with the Finance Committee to develop a budget that is more reflective of actual spending rather than continuing to build on past budgets that were inaccurate. I was able to speak confidently with Dr. Stein and achieve these results because of the effort in gathering data and analyzing information up to this point.

2. As a result, In FY 13, we were able to fund new initiatives and save the taxpayers money. We funded all initiatives including the Chinese Studies and Computer 1:1 initiative and we still found ways to save taxpayer money. I fully supported all of these initiatives.

3. On October 15, 2012 - I attended the joint School Committee and Finance Committee meeting where we clearly expressed our support for the schools and explicitly stated we do NOT request a reduction in services or reductions in the budget. We did not believe it was in the best interest of anyone’s time to do an analysis of budget with 10 percent reduction. Here are the minutes from the SC meeting:

a. Minutes from the SC. - "Tony Boschetto wanted to clarify the message that was delivered at Special Town Meeting from him and those with whom he worked regarding the budget. He agreed that it was not fiscal prudence to ask anyone to perform the exercise of cutting 10 percent from the budget. He asked for a thorough budget to actual analysis (a root cause analysis), which would result in more prudence and more precision in the fiscal budget process."

b.    Watch it live on Waycam; hear what we said.

i. KENT: elapsed time 00:38:58
ii. TONY: elapsed time 00:44:40
iii. DONNA: elapsed time 01:02:36

4. I submitted a request to the finance committee asking for an analysis of Level Funding as a comparison to the other models as this was a more useful comparison than a 10 percent reduction.

5.  I did NOT recommend or approve of any cuts in the school budget. I did NOT support a level funded budget.

I have seen the impact of flawed decisions based upon bad data and ineffective process. Our boards and committees are well intentioned but we have not had accurate financial records and good processes to analyze decisions. I have spent my professional career fixing business processes and building financial system. I have demonstrated that we can do better.

Here is an example of well-intentioned decisions made with bad data and poor process with negative impacts. I have lived through these impacts and I have no interest in repeating these mistakes.

We can do more with better information; we can fund new initiatives with better data and reduce impact to taxpayers.

We do not have a spending problem, we have an accounting and budgeting problem. If we fix our accounting systems we can fund more initiatives and do more with our money.

Example: I live in the Loker school district approximately 1 mile from the school and during the 2011/2012 school year, my four children attended four different schools. My two youngest children were unable to attend elementary school together. Today, both my First Grade Daughter and 4th Grade son spend over 45 minutes each way to school when we live 5 minutes away from a community school.

I am well aware of the consequences of a flawed decision making process. The lives of all K through 5 students and families were unnecessarily disrupted. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings were claimed, but budgets were never adjusted and taxes and fees continued to increase and savings were never realized.

The town has made flawed decisions with flawed data. Having lived with the results of this is what motivates me to work hard to protect our schools and services. My wife, Kathy, who works for the Wayland Public Schools, shares my concerns.

We can do better and I am committed to doing better.

Tony Boschetto
Candidate for Selectman

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