Why voters should approve three-year plan

By GERRY WEISS

Published on April 20, 2007

While deliberating with town department heads on the probable effects of a no-override budget, it has become painfully clear to me how deeply our town could suffer.

We would lose services and personnel in public safety, public works, human services, maintenance, conservation, inspections and close War Memorial Pool. We would have to postpone purchasing needed equipment and repairing our buildings. Twenty-seven teacher positions would be lost on top of the 22 cut last year. With or without the override, classes would be larger, music and physical education instruction would be reduced in all schools, school supplies across the board would be cut, and the middle school pool would be closed to town use.

This would be an unacceptable degradation of our community. While the override would not prevent all losses, it would reduce the damage. I support this plan because it requires us reduce our budget and face the future while avoiding the most destructive cuts.

Why does Amherst need an override? Between 2002 and 2006, state aid to Amherst decreased by nearly $1.5 million a year. Our state and federal governments have not been adequately funding our schools and our towns since 2001. This has put a huge burden on property taxpayers. The 2.5 percent increase per year in property taxes cannot keep up with wage and benefit increases alone, especially with health insurance costs rising by 15 percent a year to communities.

We need an override because we have been putting off facing this income/expense problem and cannot put it off any longer.

We need an override because the voters of Massachusetts voted to lower our income tax in 2001, resulting in the drop in the state aid since then. Unfortunately, those who are hit hardest by overrides are least benefited by that income tax cut. We need an override because the people of the US have failed to demand that our government fund education instead of wars. Imagine if instead of a new appropriation of $124 billion to extend the war, Congress had passed a supplemental bill to fund our schools?

Our town had wisely been putting money aside in the 1990s for a rainy day, and it has been pouring for five years. Now our savings are gone and state aid continues to be inadequate all over the state. Town and city revenues are not sufficient to cover recurring expenses for programs and services. Hence, there are 50 overrides currently scheduled on town and city ballots this year. Last year, 75 communities requested overrides, compared with 29 in 2000.

Our finance director, town manager, and Finance Committee have come up with a three-year plan to try to address this mess. The plan includes cuts in our budget this year, even with an override, and stable funding for the two subsequent years. The best way for communities to focus on year-over-year expenses and revenue is by adopting a multi-year financial plan. So why not develop a multi-year plan without an override? Certainly this could be done. However, it would require cuts even greater than those listed above to achieve a multi-year balanced budget.

This override, while allowing us to avoid crippling cuts in staff, teachers and services, would also force us to tighten our belts and limit our spending. Of course, nothing is guaranteed. But based upon our best forecasting and calculations, this override would carry us into 2011 with few if any cuts being needed in 2009 and 2010, and a good chance that we will go into 2011 with a better financial picture than we now have.

We have reason to be cautiously optimistic that in three years, there will be positive changes in our revenue picture. We now have a governor who appears to be committed to changing this situation in Massachusetts; we have new commercial and residential projects under construction and in the planning stages that will generate new tax income by next year; and our town manager has been working hard to increase fees paid by our colleges and University.

There isn't a plan that will be pain-free. Deeply diminished schools would hurt many. We are fortunate to live in a town with the services we have, which is why our homes have increased in value so much over the years. The price we pay for this value and these services is in the form of property taxes. The three-year plan is a positive and sound plan. It begins with passing the override on May 1.

Gerry Weiss is chairman of the Amherst Select Board. The views presented here are his and not those of the board.