That is an interesting thought: HCA rezoning manifesting itself in the need to build a larger more expensive Community Center that we would otherwise do, with the associated increase in taxes for existing town residents. Could it be that the rezoning would cause the town incur some costs which are currently not contemplated by the HCA working group? I have offered the HCA working group and the Select Board to spearhead an analysis group that would look at all the different financial implications of the HCA zoning with some rigor, but so far I have not received an iota of interest.
Let us look in more detail at the premises of that presentation “demonstrating” that the LPS school enrollment could be absorbed by the school. https://www.lincolntown.org/DocumentCenter/View/85116/2023-SOTT-HCA-Slide-Deck-wtih-Notes?bidId= <https://www.lincolntown.org/DocumentCenter/View/85116/2023-SOTT-HCA-Slide-Deck-wtih-Notes?bidId=> - The analysis assumes sections will be filled to capacity. This has simply not been the policy of the school. To give you an example, the school decided to add a section this year in fourth grade despite having less than 20 students per section with three sections, well the maximum 22. They also hired a new teacher for fifth grade despite the number of students per section being compliant with the rules as defined by the School Committee. In fact, if we followed their logic, we should be dropping another section in sixth grade and a couple of sections in eight grade. If the school really thinks that filling classes to capacity is not a problem, why are we not doing that now? - The study naively, and conveniently for their purposes, assumes that all cohorts perfectly adapt to the maximum enrollment number per grade. As you can see in our current enrollment, the bigger cohorts like 5th grade are 60% larger than the smaller cohorts, like 1st grade. This is partly the justification for why we keep more teachers around than necessary if we were optimizing for one school year. If we increase our baseline student population by 50%, some cohorts will require 6 sections rather than 4. Since those kids will go through every grade from kindergarten to middle school, we would need to keep more teachers on staff at different grade levels to absorb them, like we do now. - What does it actually mean to “absorb”? Of course there is space to house more kids in the school. No questions about that. What those slides fail to mention is that payroll constitutes more than 75% of the school’s budget. Most of those staff members are directly tied to enrollment. It is not just classroom teachers, it is substitute teachers, specialists, aides, etc. If we add more students, costs will go up almost 1:1. What I am trying to say is that HCA rezoning, if approved by the town, will have very large tax implications for town residents which are not being discussed. I would encourage everyone to reach out to the working group and the Selects and get their thoughts on what I am explaining here. I also once more, this time informally, petition the Working Group and the Selects to take the matter seriously and appoint an independent study group to look into these issues. David Cuetos Weston Rd On Mon, Oct 2, 2023 at 12:20 Michael Dembowski <mjdembow...@gmail.com> wrote: > Karla, Andy and those so inclined - and still interested - > Has anyone made an attempt to look at increased capacity/demand of COA, > LEAP and Parks and Rec due to the proposed Town Rezoning? > The Rezoning Deck posted earlier this AM includes a chart on LPS School > Enrollment - demonstrating what could be absorbed within current # of class > sections and within the space limitation of (1) additional section per > grade. A majority of the allowable increase can be absorbed within the > current number of class sections - 187 of a 267 total. > Beyond debate and disagreement about numbers, perhaps a larger lesson to > be gleaned is that the school project smartly has been right-sized for > additional future capacity. Given the proposed zoning changes - that > additional demand should be at least a point of discussion if not be > outright factored into the Community Center programming. > Michael Dembowski > Conant Road > > On Mon, Oct 2, 2023 at 11:13 AM Karla Gravis <karlagra...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> While I understand that Hanscom could bring a level of complexity, that >> distinction is not relevant in this particular discussion because the CCBC >> is not calculating the non-Hanscom population. The benchmarking used the >> TOTAL Lincoln population. >> >> >> The issue at hand is that the town census shows 600 (~40%) more seniors >> than the US census for all of Lincoln. Hanscom does not affect that. >> >> >> More importantly, the Hanscom discussion does not change the fact that the >> CCBC is not being forthcoming about sources. The CCBC said, in writing, >> and I quote: “The CCBC has used the Town Census numbers for every town, >> to ensure full comparability”. That is simply not true. Regardless of >> Hanscom or not, the CCBC benchmarking is using different sources for other >> towns and not for Lincoln. They used the *lower* numbers for other towns >> from one source and the *higher* numbers for Lincoln from a different >> source. At the very least, there should have been a caveat explaining this. >> >> >> I would also note that, given the upward bias of a town census, due to >> the methodological issues I describe in my previous post, there is little >> reason to believe the ACS is a less accurate population measure. >> >> >> By using the higher numbers for Lincoln but lower numbers for other >> towns, it seems like we’re trying to justify a center bigger than our >> needs. If we add this to the fact that the COA refuses to provide >> attendance data, we dramatically increase the probability that the town >> will be building another building that is way too big for our real needs. >> >> >> Karla Gravis >> >> Weston Road >> >> >> On Mon, Oct 2, 2023 at 9:05 AM Andrew Payne <a...@payne.org> wrote: >> >>> >>> Karla G. wrote: >>> >>> Below are two examples for Concord and Harvard, as proof that the CCBC >>>> used the ACS numbers and not the town census numbers in their benchmarking. >>>> >>> The issue that is very unique to Lincoln when trying to use that US >>> Census ACS data: figuring out the *non-Hanscom population. * >>> >>> Anyone making cross-town comparisons should keep that in mind. >>> >>> One >>> let's-complicate-things-by-putting-Hanscom-AFB-base-housing-within-our-small-town's-town-limits >>> resident's view, >>> >>> -andy >>> https://payne.org/lt-disclaimer/ >>> >> -- >> The LincolnTalk mailing list. >> To post, send mail to Lincoln@lincolntalk.org. >> Browse the archives at >> https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. >> Change your subscription settings at >> https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. >> >> -- > The LincolnTalk mailing list. > To post, send mail to Lincoln@lincolntalk.org. > Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/ > . > Change your subscription settings at > https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln. > >
-- The LincolnTalk mailing list. To post, send mail to Lincoln@lincolntalk.org. Browse the archives at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/private/lincoln/. Change your subscription settings at https://pairlist9.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/lincoln.
