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Selectman Chair Kathy Fagan emphasized that “because of state aid cuts, we are working on an override for reduced services.”
“That’s what we’re dealing with right now,” she said. “There are going to be changes next year even in a best-case scenario.”
Fagan said this is because “there’s a cost to living in a town with a commercial base under three percent…and saying no to both [commercial development] and occasional overrides is no longer an option.”
The Warrant Committee, in a hypothetical scenario, presented three options for an override: one for $3.7 million that would give the town a similar budget to this year; another for $5.8 million to attain similar services; and a third for $8.5 million to get back services that were lost last year.
Committee Chair Tom Hurley said the schools have asked for $1.8 million and departments will need up to $3 million to keep level services. He said local receipts are also expected to drop by $400,000.
But Selectman Marion McEttrick called all three proposals “unacceptable” and said voters can only reasonably be asked to support an override somewhere “between $2 and $3 million.” While she supports “some type” of override, she said people should accept that it will include reduced services.
“It’s already a tough year for an override. We really can’t do a campaign if people aren’t willing to get out there and work for it,” she said. “If they come back to us and say ‘only if it gives us something,’ it’s not going to have success.”
Shields agreed. “Some of it becomes marketing. What can you pass?” he said.
Hurley stressed that the Warrant Committee isn’t necessarily supporting anything yet but has calculated what it will cost to cover departments’ requests. He also said the committee is still “vetting budgets.”
“It all depends on how you define level services,” he said. “I think, as a committee, we’d like to see something get passed. We’re still going to do our due diligence and to determine what these level-service budgets really mean.”
But School Committee Chair Beirne Lovely said the town departments are not being clear in their requests for new funding.
“We’ve given you very specific information on how we got to the $1.8 million [request],” he said. “I think people are entitled to know exactly the same level of detail ... otherwise it’s a mystery to the schools what is needed on the town side.”
As an example, Lovely said people should know if police officers are going to be taken off the streets the same way teachers would be cut from classrooms.
He said people should know “the bad story if we’re going to get any town support.”
“All this has to be out there. People have to know the level of the impact,” School Committee member Glenn Pavlicek added.
Lovely suggested more budget details be posted on the town’s Web site. Hurley agreed to post budget spreadsheets online.
Town Administrator Kevin Mearn said department heads are still “looking for some guidance” from the Warrant Committee for working their budgets toward an overall override goal.
Mearn added that the town is “already way ahead of the curb” in measuring how local aid cuts next year will impact budgets. The town has bumped up its budgeting process by a few months, he said.
“I think people really have to realize the significance of that process,” he said.