Norwood Ousts 3 Who Fought School Budget Cut-This Day In Norwood History-September 7, 1978

Three Norwood School Committee members who refused to agree to a $600,000 budget cut were voted out of office in a recall election Tuesday. The election, the second in Norwood this century, came just one day before schools opened, but officials said the opening of the town’s 12 schools went smoothly.

The election was the climax of a sometimes bitter battle that began in June when the School Committee rejected a town meeting proposal to cut $600,000 from the proposed $11.3 million school budget.

Since 1970, Norwood’s school population has dropped from 7280 to 5842 students, with the largest decline occurring in the elementary grades. Town meeting members and the town Finance Commission argued that the decline in school enrollment justified the cuts roughly equal to the cost of operating one elementary school and threatened recall action against school committee members if the cuts were not made.

Under state law, school committees have fiscal autonomy over school budgets in every Massachusetts community except Boston. Four of the seven School Committee members finally agreed to a compromise $335,000 budget cut at a special town meeting Aug. 28. But committee chairman and 19-year veteran Henry Diggs, Richard Kief, a two-term member, and John Chisholm, serving his first three-year term, refused to make any cuts. All three were defeated in Tuesday’s election. Diggs was unseated by Thomas DiFrancia by a five-vote margin, 1455-1450. Diggs has asked for a recount.

Kief was defeated by former school committeeman Charles Saracca, 1729-1279, and Chisholm lost 1447-1167 to William Pudsey, who had twice ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the committee. None of the defeated could be reached for comment. “What happened here is the aftermath of Proposition 13,” said Louis J. Taris, Norwood school superintendent. “In my estimation, there is a widespread concern nationally about rising taxes. That’s the bottom line in what’s happening.”

Taris said that the system-wide student enrollment is declining by an average of 2 pupils a year. This year’s budget request was up 3.9 percent over last year’s budget of $10.6 million, he said, and more than 80 percent of the budget is for teacher salaries.

Walter Grady, a 45-year-old electronics engineer and town meeting member who helped lead the citizen group that moved for the recall, was elated by the results. “I expected to win at least one seat. We were pretty sure about the second. We weren’t too sure about the third seat,” he said in a telephone interview. “I think the voters made their intentions very clear.”

But the four committee members who voted for the budget cut also face a recall. Yesterday, selectmen set Oct. 24 as the date for the recall election of Rudith Berkowitz, Joan Cuff, William Egan, and Joseph Pentowski. The selectmen acted after a petition was filed on behalf of a group opposing the Diggs-Kief-Chisholm recall.

The group’s aim is to recall the committee members who agreed to the $335,000 budget cut compromise.

“The mood of the town seems clear,” said John Hayes, 46, another leader of the group that moved for the original recall election. “This other recall is just a spite move, and I think the effort will go down the drain.” Richard King, president of the Norwood Teachers Assn., which represents the system’s 423 teachers, said the second recall group is opposed to the budget cuts and opposed to the closing of any school buildings right now. “This is the first year that every student will be housed only in classrooms,” he said in a telephone interview from Junior High North, where he teaches social studies. “They will no longer be housed in nurses’ offices, in corridors, or in the libraries. They will be housed in classrooms.”

“Our position is that maybe in a few years, a building will have to be closed, but right now is not the time,” he said.

By Ron Hutson Globe Staff