By Scott MacKeen
Staff Writer
6/11/09
Twenty years after the town first had a Proposition 2 1/2 operational override pass by ballot question, voters approved the largest one yet.
By a 54 to 46 percent margin, voters passed a fiscal year 2010 budget containing a $3.42 million override Monday. With 8,495 voters casting a ballot, the override passed by 598 votes.
“We would just like to say to the town, ‘thank you very much,’” Selectmen Chair John Shields said after the results were announced on cable following Monday’s special election.
The most recent previous override, in 2006, totaled roughly $2.4 million, which was then the record for the town. That vote took place prior to the start of fiscal year 2007.
All but four precincts were in favor of Monday’s override. Precincts 6, 7, 8 and 9, which are in the east and center of town, were opposed.
Julio Ricardo Varela, one of the co-chairs of the pro-override Invest in Milton campaign, said it was “a very incredible effort by volunteers” to inform residents why the override was needed.
“We’re very thrilled. It’s a testament to the leadership that it was passed,”
he said.
With voters accepting the property tax increase, the town will avoid having to operate under a smaller budget that for months officials have warned would require dramatic layoffs and service cuts.Additional funding from the override will allow departments to keep similar services to last year, although some cuts will still be required, officials said.
Shields said the fact that town leaders were united this year, something that hasn’t always been the case, was part of what made the difference. Last year, Selectmen were against putting the question to voters.
Shields said it was important this year to spell out the town’s financial pressures to Annual Town Meeting before holding an election.
“We needed Town Meeting to hear this,” he said. “It’s been so transparent this year. There’s been a need that’s been driving this whole thing along.”
Former Selectman Joseph McEttrick, who was on the board when the first operational override passed in 1989 for a little over $500,000, said the town needed this one perhaps more than ever, partially because of a probable reduction in state aid for the first time in years. Based upon projections in the House and Senate budgets, which are yet to be approved, the town could lose as much as $1.2 million of its $10 million state aid in FY 10.
Regardless of the override passing, McEttrick said there’s still going to be some “real belt-tightening” to the budget.
“This just makes our job that much easier,” he said.
The approval of the override means the School Department won’t have to eliminate the 43 positions, including 38 teachers, officials said they would have had to under the smaller budget, School Committee Chair Lynda-Lee Sheridan said. However, it will still require “some type of cuts” the committee has yet to officially endorse.
“It’s certainly going to be easier to take than what we were looking at,” said Sheridan.
School officials previously said the override budget would still mean 13 positions, seven of them teachers, would be eliminated because it is still $550,000 less than they need to bring this year’s services into next. The schools will receive around $1.7 million, over half of the override total.
The police and fire chiefs have also said the override budget would require each to eliminate two positions, but not the five each would cut without the override.
Additionally, one fire station would have been closed if the override had failed.
Another result of the override’s passage is that the Department of Public Works will not be forced to abandon its yard-waste pickups, although half of the town’s streetlights will be turned off to save money.
Meanwhile, Shields said he understands why many voters opposed the override, which raises taxes during an economic downturn.
“It’s humbling. Some people are really facing hard times. You can understand why they voted no,” he said. “They weren’t saying, ‘you guys are wasting this money.’ They’re worried about their jobs. They want the same services, but they’re up against it.”
Shields also stressed that the passage of the override doesn’t mean “happy times are here again.”
Instead, he expects next year to be just as challenging a budget year for the town, if not more so if the nation stays financially stagnant. He said he wouldn’t support seeking another override for “a few years.”
Varela said one of the lessons of this year’s campaign is to not make overrides a “habit.”
“We do have to look at this in the context of the recession,” he said. “I’d like to do this less and less.”
Sheridan thanked the Warrant Committee for putting in “over 2,000 hours of volunteer work” this year in formulating the town’s budget.
Around 47 percent of registered voters cast a ballot Monday. The override raises the average annual tax bill, on a home assessed at $530,000, by $360. Added to the 2.5 percent contained in the Proposition 2 1/2 statute, that tax bill would likely jump from roughly $6,200 to $6,900.