School Committee Custodial Payroll Test Awaits Town Counsel Ruling Amid Wage Dispute-August 22, 1967

Town Clerk and Accountant Bartley W. Connolly had been widely expected to outright reject the school department payrolls submitted yesterday because they included wage increases that had been previously rejected by town meeting. Instead of issuing an immediate rejection, Connolly announced he would seek a formal legal opinion from Town Counsel Gotovich on whether the payrolls should be processed and paid—a step that threatened to delay paychecks for the 31 school custodians and maintenance personnel. Connolly stated he would submit his request to Gotovich in writing and hold off on acting on the payrolls, which are traditionally distributed on Wednesdays, pending a reply.

The Fiscal Autonomy Clash and Town Meeting Cuts

The underlying controversy stems from a three-and-a-half-month impasse over wage adjustments promised by the school committee to its custodial staff. While the school board authorized a wage increase amounting to roughly seven percent, the annual town meeting on May 1 slashed the appropriation down to a five-percent increase, eliminating approximately $5,449 in disputed funds.

Under the submitted payroll, custodians received the higher pay rate for the first time, featuring across-the-board annual increases of $400 and $440. However, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Philip O. Coakley previously noted he could not certify that the department possessed sufficient remaining funds to sustain the higher wage scale through December. If the school committee’s payroll test succeeds in securing full payment for the workers, the board will ultimately be forced to request a reserve fund transfer from the Finance Commission or seek supplemental funding at a year-end town meeting.

Despite the procedural friction, referring the dispute to Town Counsel may pave the way toward a legal resolution. School committeeman William F. Egan pointed out that Counsel Gotovich previously advised that the town would likely lose if challenged in court over the matter. Gotovich’s assessment is rooted in established judicial interpretations of the state’s school fiscal autonomy laws, which prohibit town meetings from making line-item budget cuts within school board appropriations. If Gotovich rules in favor of the school committee, the payroll test could successfully break the months-long deadlock between municipal governance and educational administration.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger