Swampscott Boards Eye Long-Anticipated 'Financial Summit'

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Plans for a long-anticipated and often-derailed "financial summit" in Swampscott appear on track for this fall as the leaders of the town's major budgeting committees seek to develop a master spending plan and avoid the types of last-minute wrangling on the eve — and even during — the annual town meeting that have occurred the past two years.

The Select Board this week discussed the outline for the financial summit — which would bring together members of that board, the School Committee, Finance Committee, potentially the Capital Improvement Committee and others, to discuss priorities and goals for the upcoming budget season and beyond.

That type of collaboration has been discussed in committee meetings frequently in recent years, but has not truly come to fruition. Two years ago, a motion on town meeting floor to increase the school budget passed on the first night of the meeting, only to be reconsidered on the second night. Last year, following Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald's leave of absence in the fall, the school budget was again a point of contention with the Select Board conducting a line-item review of Town Hall expenditures days before town meeting to make up part of a $130,000 budget gap.

The goal of the financial summit would be to lay the groundwork for budget discussions that avoid that type of white-knuckle ride into town meeting at a time when the town expects to welcome a new full-time town administrator to replace Gino Cresta, who has been the interim town administrator since Fitzgerald stepped down in December, and took himself out of consideration for the permanent position.

"We need to put some of the things that are taking up space aside and we need to get back to the business of business," Select Board Chair Katie Phelan said during Tuesday's meeting. "That involves designating goals and then circulating back quarterly to then make sure that whoever is in (the town administrator's) seat feels confident when they are taking steps forward because they already know that this is one of the Select Board's goals. And they don't have to circle back with anybody because they know going forward that is something that we've set out to accomplish. ...

"We need to be better at doing that. It was well-intentioned (last year). But there was very little follow-through. We need to get better at that. I think it is great timing with the precipice that we are at. Hopefully, we get through this hiring of a new TA and then the very first thing that we should be talking about is goal-setting and our expectations as the policy-making board."

Phelan added that once the goals are established, the Board needs to be more unified in supporting those goals.

"We've sort of been fractured and moving in separate directions," she said. "I understand why it happened. But let's fix it."

Select Board member Doug Thompson said the advanced work ahead of the summit will help determine whether it is a success.

"Having a discussion at the financial summit about the middle school and not having prepared for that discussion will make it a lot less beneficial," he said. "We know, basically, what our finances are over the next couple of years. It's not going to be a mystery. It's not going to be a surprise that things are going to be very tight. But one thing we have control over is doing things differently."

Phelan said the goal is to schedule the financial summit for sometime during the fall after the new town administrator is hired.

"I want it to be helpful, fruitful, actionable," she said. "I don't want us all to sit in a room with big heads and have big thoughts. We want to have action. So that is to say, 'bear with us, public.' We are going to find the right time for this."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)