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Mayor seeks IT consolidation with schools; school committee files legal challenge
Summary
The mayor and city IT director pressed for a consolidation of municipal and school IT services to reduce contract costs; the school committee has since moved to block the executive order and seek legal relief.
The Methuen mayor and the city's information-technology director described a plan to consolidate city and school IT services during the budget workshop, prompting immediate concern from the school committee and some councilors.
The mayor said an executive order had started the consolidation process and framed it as a step toward reducing redundant contracts and building in-house capacity. "There are areas where the school department takes advantage of significant education discounts," the mayor said, adding the city could deliver technical services that reduce outsourcing costs across departments.
The city's IT director said the consolidation aims to reduce duplicate contracted services (including cybersecurity and certain software contracts) and to share higher-level technical staff across city and school systems. "Where I think the savings is gonna be is the combined of the resources," the director told the council, noting the challenge of evaluating savings without full access to the school department's ticketing and contract systems.
School leaders raised legal questions. The school committee voted to seek injunctive relief to block the executive order, a step the mayor acknowledged during the meeting. The superintendent told councilors that while the two sides had productive conversations, the timing of personnel and contract commitments meant the school department had little margin to absorb sudden operational changes without risking service interruptions or layoffs.
Councilors asked for concrete savings estimates and cautioned consolidation should not lead to staffing reductions in the near term. The mayor said he expected to identify at least several hundred thousand dollars of avoidable contract costs in the near term and said the effort was intended to be collaborative, though he urged against additional cuts to the mayor's budget number.
The council did not vote on the consolidation or trade any formal approvals; the discussion underscored unresolved process questions, a pending legal action by the school committee and the need for a more detailed, auditable business case that spells out how services, staffing and contracts would change if consolidation proceeds.
