Selectmen will support override, but not now
Published on March 14th, 2007
STONEHAM, MA - A supermajority of Selectmen will support an override to plug this year’s estimated $3.8 million deficit, but differences on how to proceed with such a measure left a formal ballot question unendorsed this Tuesday.
Despite being pressured by parents and citizens worried about looming layoffs and educational program reductions, the Selectmen declined to formally vote on placing an tax override on the ballot this Tuesday night.
With residents literally encircling the Selectmen in the crowded Town Hall hearing room, as well as an estimated 50 other citizens congregating in the hallway outside the gathering room due to space limitations, many demanded that the town officials act immediately on placing the initiative on a special election ballot.
Based upon the current budget being worked on by the Selectmen, the ranks of police and fire departments will be thinned by another eight safety officials this year, although it hasn’t been made specifically clear as to what consequences those personnel reductions will have.
The school system, which has been mandated to slash $1.5 million under Town Administrator David Ragucci’s spending proposal, would eradicate all freshman sports, all K-8 music and arts, and redistrict eight graders to elementary schools.
“Nobody wants to cut what we might have to cut. But I don’t think we can put an actual number on [an override], because we don’t have a final number from the state,” Selectmen Chair Bob Sweeney cautioned at the outset of this week’s meeting.
“Personally, if we don’t go for a full override, I don’t think I could support a partial one,” the Chairman furthered. “We’re just going to change seats on the Titanic, either we go down quick or in a little while.”
The structural deficit
For the past two weeks, the city’s School Committee, Finance Board, and Selectmen have met twice to examine how specific revenue sources would impact not only the town’s proposed FY’08 budget, but on annual costs down the road.
During those meetings, Finance Board veteran Richard Gregorio has repeatedly stressed that when town officials consider some basic budgetary realities, it becomes clear that Stoneham has a structural deficit.
In other words, unless town officials figure out some way to bring soaring salary, healthcare, utility and other costs in line with the revenue streams the town can expect, virtually no reasonable override figure will solve the ongoing fiscal crisis for a long-term period.
For example, according to Gregorio, even if an $6 million tax increase was endorsed — costing the average homeowner another $600 in property taxes — Stoneham would face another large financial gap within three to four years, if the town can’t find someway to reign in annual jumps in expenditures such as health insurance.
“That’s the reality and I’ve done this every year,” stressed the Finance Board member during a tri-board meeting two-weeks-ago. “It’s just simple mathematics that our cost escalators are outpacing our revenues.”
However, according to some officials, if the town can propose an override that helps the government get through the next two years, action can be taken on a number of proposals to reign in costs — which generally increase about 4.5 percent for the schools and 5 percent for the town, says Gregorio.
In addition to finding ways to save on expenses such as health insurance, those override proponents also argue that it’s likely that within two years, more state aid will be available, as well as increased tax dollars from the arrival large scale developments such as the proposed Fallon Road Home Depot.
“The bottom-line is that we can’t afford these cuts. An override next year [after we cut $3.8 million] or as projects come online will only maintain what’s left,” School Committee Chair Kristen Russo said on Tuesday.
“We’re going to have a whole generation of students and townspeople who will all be shortchanged,” Russo furthered.
However, according to opponents of placing an immediate override on the ballot, the initiative will overwhelmingly fail if residents can’t be absolutely guaranteed that a tax increase will solve the structural deficit for at least three-to-five years.
Gregorio and Selectman Paul Rotondi, the two largest pushers of this argument, specifically argued that no override should be placed on an election ballot until ongoing union deliberations are settled.
Without that occurrence, the pair say, the townspeople will have no assurances that required health insurance and other benefit alterations are in place to eliminate the underlying cause of Stoneham’s continual financial struggle.
“I don’t think we should ask the citizens of Stoneham to pay to save a lot of jobs when the unions are being intangible and not offering their fair share,” Rotondi said.
“Our own projects show that even if we cut the [$3.8] million deficit this year, next year we’ll have a $1.5 million deficit,” the first-term Selectman would later say. “Until we get a firm grip of our financial structure, my opinion is that any money spent on an override you’re throwing down the drain.”
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