Thursday, March 16, 2000 Older Editions

Selectmen add to youth services

By Neil Fater

What a difference a week -- and two selectmen -- make, especially for Andover's Youth Services Department.

One week after the Board of Selectmen voted 4-0 against funding for a new program assistant for youth services, they reversed field Monday and voted 3-1 to add the new position.

What changed in seven days time? The board itself, to some degree.

While Selectman and Andover Youth Foundation co-founder Larry Larsen was absent from last week's meeting, he attended Monday's meeting. Chairman John Hess was absent from this Monday's meeting.

With Hess absent, Larsen joined Lori Becker and Brian Major in voting to recommend that Town Meeting approve the new position as part of next year's budget.

The vote represented selectman's first split with the budget recommended by Town Manager Buzz Stapczynski.

"I'd rather be doing this than hiring many of the positions (recommended by Stapczynski). I'd rather be doing this than hiring a full-time painter," said Larsen, referring to the plant and facilities department, which had requested and received one new full-time painter in Stapczynski's recommended budget. Stapczynski also approved 11 other new positions.

While Stapczynski argued about such "competing needs" Monday, selectmen said youth services needs another program assistant immediately because it's offering so many new, popular programs.

"They have gone on for too long understaffed," said Becker. "I can't see any reason not to support it."

"I see this department growing exponentially," said Major. "I would hope that when we do grow this organization, there would be a woman hired into this organization because we are working with both (genders) at the middle- and high-school ranks."

Flip-flop

Becker and Major offer different reasons for their change of heart. Their vote to support the town manager's budget last week surprised some, because both have been vocal supporters, and chaperones, of youth service programs.

Becker said she wanted to move to add the position last week, "but I didn't know what to do."

"Here I am two years, and I don't even know," she said. "There is no rule book."

Becker said she could not find another selectman to support adding the position, or an official to tell her how much she needed to add for the program assistant.

She notes that on Monday officials struggled to determine they would need to add $31,209 to the budget for the position.

"It took them 10 minutes to figure it out," she said.

Major says that his decision to wait simply "ate away at me" all week, and when Larsen revisited the issue Monday "it seemed like the right thing to do."

"What the town manager's goals were was to build upon a base, and it made sense. Let's bring clerks in to build departments' bases and help handle the increased activities," says Major. "But as I thought more about it, it really ate away at me that with youth, you can't afford to wait."

Major says he also believes that the two existing youth services employees work long hours without calling for contractually obligated overtime because of their commitment.

"As some point, that's going to run out, and you're going to overtax the employees and that's going to have a negative impact. That's something we can't afford," he says.

Competing interests

For his part, Stapczynski said he regularly sees young people visiting the youth services office down the hall from his.

"Certainly we all value what is going on there. The issue is competing needs," said Stapczynski.

Stapczynski noted that his recommended youth services budget increases by $5,000 the fund used for hiring youth services' seasonal employees.

"(And) we've doubled the amount of monies we have earmarked for the revolving account (from $50,000 to $100,000)," he said. "That revolving account is meant to be used for personnel -- personnel and programming.

Mary French was the lone selectman to oppose adding the assistant.

"Youth is a clear priority for all of us, but I do feel that we have an obligation to work with the town manager," she said. "At the moment my vote will be no (new position) because I believe there's a process involved that needs to be followed."

"You make a good point that we need to have respect for the process, but this is the process," argued Larsen.

Selectmen are responsible for setting the town priorities and letting the town manager know what is important to the residents, said Larsen.