Judge Morse Extends Deadline For School Financing Proposal

Suffolk Superior Court Judge Thomas R. Morse Jr. '48 has extended until Friday a deadline--originally set for yesterday--for Boston Mayor Kevin H. White and the City Council to agree on a proposal for securing $30 million needed to finance the city's public school system for the remainder of the year.

"The schools must not close," Morse said during the hearings yesterday, adding that White and the council "must reach a political solution."

Past Tense

Charles M. Harr, special master in the hearings and Brandeis Professor of Law, yesterday accused both the mayor and the city council of "using the school funding crisis as a vehicle to effect political structural changes."

School committee attorney Marshall Simonds charged during the hearings that the city council made political power a priority over the education of the city's students, and that the council included in its proposal to White measures "not essential to the resolution to the crisis."

After the hearings, city councilor Rosemaric Sansone, who voted to include in the council's latest proposal a provision for voters to recall elected officials, said she did so because the mayor "deliberately created the city's financial crisis," decreasing essential services such as police and fire protection and leaving the budgets for less important services intact. Sansone said, however, that she is now "willing to forsake the recall provision" if deleting the provision will induce the mayor to sign the proposal.

The city council will hold a closed meeting today to discuss modifying its proposal.