By Scott MacKeen
Staff Writer
5/7/09
As the town sets to vote its first budget since the economic downturn began, residents are being asked to consider what the town could look like next year.
And with the new fiscal year looming, town leaders are urging residents to support a tax hike through a Proposition 2 1/2 override. The referendum will appear on a June 8 ballot.
On Tuesday night, the Selectmen set the number for the ballot at $3.42 million. It would be the largest override the town has ever passed.
“We find ourselves staring at an untenable situation,” Selectman Chair John Shields told Town Meeting members Monday night. “We have to ask for an override.”
As Annual Town Meeting opened its first night, residents were given a first-blush impression of the severity of cuts departments are facing in next year’s budget, which even with the passage of an override will leave the town millions short of maintaining its current services.
With each of the night’s speakers, one question was front and center: How well can the town maintain its quality of life through economic turmoil?
“The town will survive, but it will certainly provide less services,” said Warrant Committee Chair Tom Hurley during his budget presentation.
The town’s finance leaders have put forth two budget pictures for fiscal year 2010: one that balances the town’s finances and a larger one based on the passage of an override.
The balanced budget would provide the town with around $800,000 less in its operating budget, necessitating cuts to the largest departments. The budget, drafted in March, estimates a $1.2 million cut to Milton’s state aid based upon the governor’s budget, Hurley said. Local receipts are also expected to fall by as much as $600,000.
The Warrant Committee, which has set $3.3 million as its override ceiling, said an override approaching that amount would prevent the most severe cuts. However, it would not be enough to provide every dollar the departments are requesting. That would take a $5.9 million override, Hurley said.
Shields said he is worried the town may not be the same next year.
“It has taken years to build our town up to this place. Our quality of life is indeed being threatened,” he said.
Without an override, the balanced budget would require the elimination of five police officers and five firefighters, the closing of a fire station, the elimination of yard-waste pickup and shutting off of half the town’s streetlights.
It would also mean three crossing guards and three 911 dispatchers would lose their jobs.
Shields called that degree of cuts to town services “unacceptable.”
“They’re not what [our taxpayers] expect of us,” he said Monday night.
The following night, the library budget sparked a chord on Town Meeting floor.
Former state Rep. M. Joseph Manning stood up to oppose the Library Trustees’ decision to close the East Milton branch, which would occur under both budgets. Manning said the library has been a “godsend” to people in his neighborhood since it opened in 1931.
With additional funds, library officials have said they would not maintain a branch. Instead, they would explore adding Sunday hours to the main library, something residents are requesting.
Manning motioned to add $76,000 to the override amount to keep the branch open for 21 hours per week.
However, town leaders opposed the measure. It was voted down by Town Meeting members.
A full report on the library discussion will appear next week.
Town Meeting also voted down a motion by Tom Kelly to add $87,500 into the override to keep all the streetlights on.
On the school side of the budget, the cuts would be even starker without an override. Forty-six positions, including 38 teachers, would be cut.
That would leave the schools “just a shell” of their current self, School Committee Chair Lynda-Lee Sheridan said.
“It would take years to recover from this,” Sheridan said.
(The School Committee gave its budget presentation Tuesday night. That story will run in next week’s Times. A related story appears this week on
Page 1.)
Meanwhile, much of the budget debate at Monday’s meeting focused on how the cuts would impact the town’s public safety services.
Police Chief Richard Wells Jr. and Fire Chief Malcolm Larson were asked for their thoughts on how their operations would be affected without an override. Under the non-override scenario, the loss of five uniformed personnel – or around 10 percent of each man’s staff – would be detrimental, both agreed.
Wells said the police would be reduced to “unprecedented levels in the history of this town.”
“Unfortunately, we live in the real world. This is a very difficult situation,” he said.
Wells said his department is planning to hold public forums, called “Cops Count, Policing Matters,” to describe the role of Milton police and take questions on the budget.
Larson, who will retire when the new fiscal year begins, said he is worried about the prospect of losing one of the town’s three fire stations, something that the newly appointed chief, Brian Linehan, would have to manage.
“When you do that, it affects response times. You have an unacceptably low degree of [staffing and coverage] in the town,” he said.
“The problem is, which one do you close?” asked Shields.
Shields said the East Milton station is strategically placed in a dense residential zone and also responds to freeway calls. The station on Blue Hill Avenue handles growing populations at Curry College and Fuller Village.
Meanwhile, Town Meeting voted to add $44,086 to the override budget. That amount, the equivalent of Youth Counselor Vicki McCarthy’s salary, would save her job with the passage of the override.
Several speakers cited the importance of saving the position, which is the only remaining vestige of the town’s Youth Department, established by Town Meeting in 1971.
“To not have a Youth Department in this town would be a shame,” said Marjorie Jeffries, Precinct 5 Town Meeting member.
Mary McNamara, from Precinct 10, said McCarthy, a registered social worker, “speaks for the youth of our town who have no one to speak for them.
“Her work actually makes our streets safer,” McNamara said.
The Selectmen and Warrant Committee approved restoring the position. They warned it would drive up the override total, however.
“This is a tough one for the Board of Selectmen,” said Shields. “This is a department we’re wiping out.”
Annual Town Meeting continued Tuesday, May 5, and will resume Thursday, May 7, at 7:30 p.m. in the Milton High School auditorium, 25 Gile Road. Follow the Milton Times for continuing reports.
Annual Appropriations
Town Meeting also voted the following items Monday night:
• Appropriated $67,773, to be raised from the tax levy, to fund a third-year lease payment for three trucks for the Department of Public Works.
• Appropriated $16,000, to be raised from the tax levy, to fund a second-year lease payment for four new vehicles purchased in fiscal year 2009 that currently serve departments such as Health Inspectional Services and Public Works.
• Appropriated $56,000, a contractually obligated amount, for the purpose of conducting an annual municipal audit.
• Appropriated over $12.8 million
to be raised from the tax levy, to fund retirement and group insurance costs (compared to just under $12.4 million in FY 09).
• Appropriated $100,000 for benefits to former town employees.
• Appropriated $100,000 from free cash to fund an FY 09 revenue shortfall incurred from a midyear cut in state aid.
• Appropriated $488,073 from free cash, overlay reserves and the tax levy to fund snow-and-ice removal expenses.
• Voted no appropriation to fund collective bargaining set-asides.
• Appropriated $41,617 to fund a 1 percent pay increase to Chapter 13 non-union, non-school employees. Wage increases will be absorbed in existing departmental budgets; the vote was a “symbolic” confidence vote, according to Personnel Board Chair Ann White.