Amherst Center: Amherst must set its priorities

Published on May 25, 2007

In the midst of Town Meeting, we'd like to take the time to ask something that can't be effectively asked at Town Meeting. What are the priorities of our town? And does our town budget reflect our priorities?

Since the override failed, we have all been trying to read the tea leaves about what the "message" was that voters sent. Was it simply "no new taxes," or was the amount too much? Was it a lack of faith in town leaders, in Town Meeting, or in the three-year plan itself? Or was it a sense that town spending priorities are out of whack?

It's probably some of each for different voters, but the end result meant across-the-board cuts, with all budgets held to a 1 percent increase (below the rate of inflation). On the surface, this seems like a fair way to spread the pain; the town, school, and library components get the same 1 percent cap. But it's a very rough sort of justice. It assumes that all areas can be cut and that all of the budget categories are equally important.

How do we know if our budget reflects our priorities? One way to think about it is, if we were to build a budget from scratch with the same, limited pot of money, what would we fund first? What are the core things a town needs to do?

According to the Department of Revenue, the biggest thing towns spend money on is schools. From a chart on its Web site, we find that Amherst spends 56 percent of its budget on education. And 110 other Massachusetts towns spend a higher percentage of their budgets on schools than Amherst does. For all towns and cities, it's the biggest expenditure category. Education is a core function of local government.

What else would we need if we were starting from scratch? How about public works - roads, water, sewer, etc.? These elements make up the infrastructure of a town, and obviously we need to fund them. The same goes for public safety - police, fire, ambulances. So if we were starting from scratch, based on what towns have to do, schools, public works, and public safety would be in the "core" of the budget.

But Amherst isn't like other towns, you say. We agree. There's more to fund in Amherst than schools, public works and public safety. There's the Jones Library, for example. It's a jewel, and it belongs in the core. But what about two branch libraries? Would we give them the same "core" status and resources? What about contributions by the town to local charitable organizations? What about Leisure Services?

This is where the discussion gets tough. As a Select Board member said in the recent meeting, "My core is different from your core." But we need to have this discussion. Because we can either fund everything inadequately, or we can make sure we at least fund the key things adequately.

Unfortunately, the way our town budget is organized and presented makes it even harder to have this discussion. Some budget items include key health insurance and other benefits costs, and others don't. Town Meeting looks at 13 different spending categories, one at a time, which makes it very hard to produce a balanced budget based on core priorities. There's no "benchmarking" of our budget (looking at what other communities pay for). And, in general, the budget seems organized more for financial bookkeeping than for managerial decision-making.

We need a budget that allows decision-makers to make decisions. And then we need decision-makers to make some hard choices. What are our core priorities, and how will we protect them, by funding "the core" at least at the level of inflation? Otherwise, year after year of below-inflation funding will chip away at these core functions and leave them dismantled.

The schools provide an instructive example. We've been going along, paying a less-than-inflation budget for the past four years or so. It seems like we're doing OK. But look at what we've quietly lost.

Five years ago, we had no required study halls in the high school. We had library aides to help students with reading and research. We had new textbooks and library books; these have been cut 75 percent. Class sizes have grown across the grades; we now have over 50 high school classes with 25 to 35 students. And there will be additional school cuts this year.

Our Fire Department, public works and other core town functions could tell similar stories. Somewhere, somehow we need to talk about our core priorities.

Fund everything inadequately, or make sure we at least fund the key things adequately? Let's start figuring this out now, for next year.

Amherst Center is a monthly column that discusses local issues from a centrist perspective. It is written by Town Meeting members Baer Tierkel and Clare Bertrand and School Committee member Andy Churchill.