Dawn Aberg
Contributing Writer
4/10/08
With Town Meeting less than one month away, Selectmen remain troubled by the prospect of a budget override.
Facing them at their April 1 meeting was an unpleasant choice between a so-called balanced budget that would reduce town services and a budget contingent on a tax override that would simply maintain the status quo.
Selectmen Chair Marion McEttrick calls the decision a matter of identifying “the least bad of two bad alternatives.”
For the average property owner in town, the choice entails deciding between a $230 property tax increase—without the proposed override—and a $537 increase under a contingent budget. These numbers are calculated on the basis of an average Milton property valuation of $549,313.
Warrant Committee Chair Katie Conlon says two budgets will be presented at Town Meeting, one balanced and one contingent.
“We are an advisory committee,” she explains. “We need to get as much information and as much choice as possible to the Town Members.” Because of the projected $2.7 million budgetary shortfall without the override, however, she says the committee feels reluctantly compelled to recommend the override. Their recommendation comes, she says, despite awareness that “these are difficult times for a lot of people.”
Strikes Against an Override
Conlon points out that what is being called a “balanced budget,” that is the budget without the extra tax increases, is not really balanced.
“It would still be about $100,000 out,” she says. It does include a $200,000 (salary raise) set-aside for the schools, but without the override, layoffs and cutbacks would nevertheless be necessary.
Even in the face of cutbacks, “there are lots of strikes against an override,” Selectman John Shields says. Beyond an uncertain national and regional economic climate, Conlon noted specific local uncertainties that call an override vote into question. Both the police and firefighter unions are out of contract and raises are being negotiated. The town has been hit with unforeseen medical expenses for Firefighter Antonio Pickens. And as expenditures exceed revenue as the town approaches the end of the fiscal year, Milton finds itself with no free cash.
The Schools Factor
By far the biggest uncertainty appears to relate to next year’s school budget.
“By Town Meeting, will the School Committee be ready?” Selectman Shields wonders. “They’re dealing with four or five versions of budgets at this point. This is not a good situation for going into a contingent budget.”
Selectman Kathy Fagan notes that in the past, successful overrides have counted on a campaign organized around specific school needs.
“The impact on the schools tends to be the impetus,” she says. Yet this year, she notes, no coordinated campaign has coalesced around education issues. Fagan finds this to be a “telling point” regarding opinion on the override.
Public Opinion
Perhaps because of these uncertainties, Selectmen admit they have been paying close attention to public opinion on the override issue. Fagan claims to have heard from as many people saying, “We can’t do it this year” as those voicing support. In his tally, Shields says the pro-override opinions slightly outnumbered those against the increase. “But there were some very adamant ‘no’s,’” he adds.
“We just don’t know if we have the support from our residents to mount a campaign for an override,” McEttrick says to sum up the sense of town response. “The jury’s out on that.”
Selectmen were particularly frustrated by the fact that the override would simply maintain existing services.
“It’s a sad thing that we can’t propose a major improvement,” McEttrick notes, even with the tax increases.
“A $537 increase for every home,” Shields complains, “and it’s just the status quo.”
Katie Conlon confirms their assessments.
“This is very much a level service recommendation,” she says. “The contingent budget reflects what the town departments have requested in their proposed budgets.”
Conlon praises the departments for sticking with realistic numbers in their budgets. “They didn’t include wish lists,” she says.
Fagan also praises the departments for budget-conscious behavior in relation to the town’s reserve fund.
“They’re only going to the reserve in cases of extreme emergency,” she says, using it to address unforeseen expenses, instead of viewing the fund as a budget cushion.
Looking Ahead
Even so, unforeseen events over the last year have lowered the reserve fund to $5,000, a sum that needs to last the town another 90 days. Conlon cites various possibilities for replenishing the fund to cover outstanding town unemployment expenses, including an article on the warrant that would shift $23,000 from the central business office.
The need to put budget decisions in an historical context, however, is a point of agreement for all parties.
“We all want to look at a multi-year approach,” Conlon explains. Such an approach looks realistically to future fiscal years to assess the impact of current decisions.
“We want to make sure the numbers we have for projection make sense,” she adds, stressing that these fiscal specifics would be “our focus over the next month.”
A multi-year approach also holds the possibility of spreading the burden of a tax increase over two or three years. While there are legal limits to a town’s authority to impose long-range tax increases, Conlon says there are in fact “options to not raise it all in one year.”
Looking ahead to the next month, Fagan says, “We do encourage people to let us know what they’re thinking.”
McEttrick notes that such input is essential to Selectmen’s recommendation to Town Meeting.
“We have to be honest,” she says of the possibility of an override. “Will it have a chance?”