Budget adds, deletions in the air

By Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on May 18, 2007

There's been talk about Amherst's vexing budget for months, serious number-crunching on committees, a failed $2.5 million override and a multi-board summit.

Now it's Town Meeting's turn to deliberate and ultimately decide what to do about Amherst's $70 million spending plan. Town Meeting members will likely begin weighing the general government portion of the fiscal year 2008 operating budget on Monday.

Closing a $3.7 million projected shortfall is the challenge. How Town Meeting will get there is anyone's guess right now.

School, finance and library officials at a multi-board summit on Monday said they are prepared to recommend spending plans to Town Meeting amounting to a 1 percent increase over last year.

But Select Board members at the meeting said they cannot accept the 1 percent municipal budget crafted by Town Manager Laurence Shaffer in January. They want to restore funding to human services and keep the War Memorial Pool open, among other changes to the town manager's spending plan.

"It doesn't appear the Select Board will have a united position on how to approach the budget," member Alisa Brewer said Wednesday. "So clearly we won't be on the same page with the other three boards."

Several residents, at the summit, passed out memorandums outlining their own plans.

Stanley Gawle, of the newly formed Amherst Taxpayers for Responsible Change, presented a scheme under which firefighter, police and nine teaching positions would be restored and the War Memorial Pool opened. To pay for it, Gawle's group would eliminate $441,691 in funding for Leisure Services and Supplemental Education and trim capital expenses among other measures.

Town Meeting member Vincent O'Connor offered a plan that would restore funding for public services and keep the pool open while reducing general government and employee pay and benefits by hundreds of thousands of dollars.

To pay for restorations the Select Board suggested, some members of that board suggested dipping into reserves or capital spending, or trying for another override, ideas members of the committees strongly discouraged. Many in town have said that dipping into reserves is what put the town in its budget hole in the first place.

Further, the town's reserve funds are the last place the Finance Committee would suggest going to find more money. "The capital fund is limping along on very small rations as it is," said Alice Carlozzi, the committee chairwoman.

Finance Committee members said they are prepared to support the 1 percent budget, on which they've deliberated for at least 36 hours in public, despite having endorsed the override.

Voters on May 1 rejected the $2.5 million override based on a three-year plan that included spending caps, revenue-enhancing measures and cuts. School supporters had been among its chief backers.

"We got the message," school Superintendent Jere Hochman said. "It was a 1 percent message."

School Committee members said they do not support seeking another override. It would just be throwing one-time money at shortfalls and wouldn't forestall the probable necessity of coming back for more money another year, they said.

Select Board members, on the other hand, said an override might be necessary if Town Meeting approves additions to the 1 percent, some of which the Select Board supports.

Gerald Weiss, the chairman, recommended taking $200,000 out of reserves to help pay for restorations to human service agencies and keep War Memorial Pool open. He said he would feel terrible if some extra money were found - if the University of Massachusetts were to contribute more for town services, for example - but the town had meanwhile shut the pool. Children whose families can't afford fancy vacations and don't have backyard pools depend on the town pools, Weiss said.

"I think it's unconscionable to be socking away hundreds of thousands of dollars when we're making grotesque cuts."

Members Hwei-Ling Greeney and Anne Awad suggested the town set aside less money than is budgeted now to cover ongoing collective bargaining agreements.

The Amherst School Committee, for its part, has discussed the 1 percent elementary schools budget for months, and though it is painful, they are prepared to support it, Hochman said.

"I'm feeling comfortable we can start the school year and educate the kids well."

Hochman outlined scenarios under which Town Meeting might either endorse a 3 percent regional schools budget, as has been approved in three of the district's four towns, or a 1 percent budget. If the latter, Hochman recommends using $150,000 from the school system's reserves to pay for teachers, so that high school students won't have to take two study halls per year.

Hochman and others expressed frustration with the Select Board, which had not reviewed the municipal budget before the summit, but offered suggestions to Amherst School Committee members about how they could improve the school budgets.

"We have been prudent through this process; we respected the 1 percent guideline," Hochman said. "Can we get on with building this budget?"