Merger Funding Still To Be Decided

Although the Cambridge School Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on the union of the Fletcher and Maynard elementary schools, city officials have yet to determine how the new school facility will be funded, officials said.

Superintendent of Schools Bobbie J. D'Alessandro will meet today with Cambridge City Manager Robert W. Healy to push for municipal funding of the merger.

D'Alessandro called the meeting "very critical."

Without a guarantee of funding from the city, the vote will likely have to be postponed and the proposal as a whole could be jeopardized.

According to a plan drawn up by a steering committee of parents, teachers and administrators and submitted by D'Alessandro to the school committee last week, the new school would cost around $12 to $15 million dollars and would be located either in a new facility or in a renovated Fletcher or Maynard building.

"We will talk about the whole capital plan, with specificity on Fletcher-Maynard," said D'Alessandro, who declined to elaborate more specifically what she will ask Healy for today.

At a meeting last Wednesday, where officials from the city manager's office showed school officials preliminary budget numbers, school officials discovered the city manager had not allocated any money for a new or renovated facility.

School committee members first addressed the issue at an informal public forum Saturday.

"We thought the money had been conceptually set aside," said committee member Alice L. Turkel, who said committee members had not expected all of the funds projected for construction or renovation to actually be in the city's capital budget. "When they showed us the money, it wasn't there."

It was not clear yesterday why no money had been set aside to fund the merger. Healy has been ill for several weeks, and the school committee only requested additional funding for the merged school one month ago.

Over the past few weeks, parents and school committee members have said at public hearings that a new or significantly renovated school is an important part of the merger plan.

At a meeting Feb. 15, the school committee had already delayed its final approval of the merger to tomorrow.