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by City Councilor Corey Robinson

As a lifelong resident, a 15 year employee of the City of Lowell, a Lowell Municipal Union President, and now a 3 plus year elected official, one of the most challenging issues has been upkeep and maintenance of our city’s facilities.

The current model employed to handle this responsibility has forced our Public Schools education to occur in a sub standard learning environment. The finger pointing game of ping pong has led to excess public spending and an exhausting game of chasing our tail.

Our City Council has provided a solution to this decades old challenge. The creation of a centralized facilities department.

Centralization allows for an organized and comprehensive asset management strategy to ensure the entire building portfolio is properly maintained. Data is more streamlined and transparent as processes are standardized and handled centrally for collection and analysis, similar to what the newly adopted Lowell311 has done for constituent services.

Centralizing our facilities also improves spending analysis, enables better communication and relationships throughout the organization and simplifies inventory management. It also allows for more informed decision-making best aligned with the organization’s overall goals and objectives. Essentially, there becomes one source of information, which helps to mitigate errors, duplicate efforts and maverick spending (the type of off-the-books spending that happens when sub chapters feel they don’t have a clear path to meeting their needs).

It is disappointing to see those that would benefit the most from the city’s efforts to provide the best possible learning environment for both our students and families as well as for our staff vote down this proposed solution.

With the School Committee voting 6-1 against the creation of this centralized department, I’m not sure if it’s a matter of defending the autonomy of no accountability, the inability to fully comprehend the benefit of establishing a centralized facilities department, or if it’s resistance to change because it’s change. Whatever the logic behind opposing this solution to improve the quality of life for our educational sector may be, one can only hope we will continue to move towards a solution that achieves the desired outcome.