Justin Cahir

8-24-22

Accountability and Transparency

One of the main factors that led to my decision to run for School Committee in East Greenwich was when I first reviewed the school’s Strategic Plan (SP) last summer. The SP outlines the districts goals, priorities, and initiatives for the next four years, running from 2021-2024. The School Committee references this plan often and bases many of its decisions on the plan’s purpose. It was fully approved in October of 2021. As I wrote in an opinion piece for EG News in Nov. of 2021, Link, I have the utmost respect for the community members and administrators who worked on and developed the SP. If you haven’t seen it, take a look. (EGPS StrategicPlan) It’s relevant not only for parents of EG students, but also all taxpayers of this town. Over $600K of your tax dollars are being spent on various initiatives tied to the SP, and there are no metrics or data that I’ve seen show if any of them are working. Budget Link (Click on the EGPS FY 22-23 budget doc. Initiative costs can be found on slides 23-35)

So, what made me decide to run for School Committee? The lack of accountability and transparency not only in the plan itself, but the updates (or lack thereof) the community has received since its approval. We are almost 25% of the way through the 4-year plan and there have been approximately three to four updates that I can recall on initiatives laid out in the plan. I’ve attended every school committee meeting since last August, so I feel I have a decent grasp on what is discussed. There are very few, if any, quantifiable metrics to measure success in the SP, and I’ve only seen one update this spring on metrics to track success.

In my professional career, I have initiated and executed over 200 initiatives from beginning to end, ranging in size, budget, and timing. The first thing I do is determine how the company will measure success. Without this, how do we know if we made a good investment? How do we know if what we’ve developed is beneficial? What changes need to be made if something is not working? How do we know if YOUR tax dollars are being put to good use in our schools? There seems to be a lack of transparency when it comes to the success or needed improvements of these initiatives. For a district that has seen a downward trend in Math and English acumen over the past few years, now is not the time to get lackadaisical with our initiative management.

In addition to measurements of success, in my role, we assign owners to every aspect of the initiative and provide a detailed timeline of when these milestones should be met. If there is a risk of delay it is communicated early and often. Within the school’s SP, I see no owners aligned to any of the initiatives connected to those $600K investments. How is there any accountability if we don’t even know who is responsible to execute?

If I am elected to the School Committee, I will ensure that you as parents and taxpayers are updated often on how your money is being spent and if the initiatives those dollars are being spent on are actually making a difference for our kids. I will make it a priority to align owners to each one of those initiatives so there is accountability for the success or needed improvements of those initiatives. We should not be left in the dark wondering not only if we are getting a positive return on investment, but what the actual impact is on our schools.

8-5-22

Eldredge and the School Building Master Plan

I like to stay updated on things. I’ve attended every school committee meeting for over a year and several finance and building sub-committee meetings. I feel I’m pretty fluent on what’s going on. The major question on everyone’s radar as of late is what will become of the town’s centerpiece, Eldredge? Very valid question and not one that’s easy to answer. Recent legislation was passed in RI that focuses on affordable housing, some of which will make a huge difference in making it easier for low-income families to afford housing across the state. On the other hand, others take the decision away from local towns and communities that have not met the 10% low-income housing goal. EG is one of those communities.

One bill in particular could have a direct impact on East Greenwich and the decisions being made about your beloved town centerpiece, Eldredge. The building sub-committee has already voted and agreed, unanimously, that Eldredge will be decommissioned as a school. The school building Master Plan is heavily dependent on meeting certain criteria set forth by RIDE that would increase the reimbursement amount the state would give back to East Greenwich. The committee has decided that renovating Eldredge is too expensive and will not meet RIDE’s standards to be eligible for reimbursement, something very important to the building committee as well as taxpayers. But, to what detriment? Bill H7943A, which was passed at the end of June states, in part:

“…on an annual basis, provide to the speaker of the house, the president of the senate, and the secretary of housing, a list of all school buildings which have been abandoned or are no longer being used by a school district.” It goes on to note for districts below the 10% low- or moderate-income housing (EG is in the 6% range)… “for purposes of conducting a feasibility assessment to repurpose the building as affordable housing.”

You see, it doesn’t matter what the Sub-Committee, Town Council, or any taxpayer or parent in the town wants to do with Eldredge. The bill murkily states that if it is no longer being used as a school, it doesn’t matter if the town decides to use it as a rec center, a historical society building, administrative offices, or anything else for that matter. Calls to the Housing Czars office to clarify the bill have gone unanswered. It could likely be that Eldredge needs to be turned over to the state and assessed with the aim of converting it to affordable housing. Will it make the cut? Who knows? This will be up to the new state Housing Czar and a task force that will assess the former school. Are we willing to take that chance as a town? Are the residents of the Hill neighborhood, who may have specifically moved to that area for school within walking distance, willing to take that chance?

This bill’s ramifications have not been brought up once at a subcommittee meeting by our School Committee Vice Chair, who is also the subcommittee chair, or our Town Council member who is also on the sub-committee. They have said repeatedly in meetings and on social media, “Oh, we would never demolish Eldredge; we plan to keep it and use it to serve the community based on taxpayers’ feedback.” Are they not aware of this recent legislation? If not, that would be a pretty big oversight on their part. If they are aware of the legislation, why have they not made this a central aspect of community discussions? Have our School Committee and subcommittee members reached out to our state Representative, who voted in favor of this legislation, to ask her to advocate on our town’s behalf?

If I am elected as a School Committee member, I will always stay up to date on ALL things that could affect the decisions we need to make regarding our schools and outside factors that could play a part in those decisions. I will also work closely with our state Rep. and Senator to champion East Greenwich and its constituents. Don’t let the current administration’s promises fool you. It seems like they don’t even know that this important decision could already be out of our hands.

In addition, this doesn't even address my additional concern about how the current plan does not account for the growth we will experience in our town over the next 10 years. But that's a topic for another day and which I will be highlighting in my future communications.

Vote Justin Cahir for School Committee in November to bring the leadership you deserve to our schools.