Increased revenue needed for services

By CLARE BERTRAND, ANDY CHURCHILL & BAER TIERKEL

Published on May 26, 2006

This monthly column, Amherst Center, is not about a physical place. Rather, it is about the 'philosophical' place where most of us live. We love this town and the good schools, open space, cultural diversity, and small-town feel that make it special. And we worry about how to sustain this in an era of rising costs and dwindling state aid, without over-taxing our homeowners. So how are we doing?

Spring Town Meeting is about halfway through, and the results so far are mixed. While members have extensively debated the issue of genetically engineered foods, the budget wasn't tackled until Monday. Town Meeting did vote to support our traditional citizen volunteer protections ('special municipal employee status'), so all community members can contribute their expertise to our committee system. However, it narrowly failed to muster the two-thirds vote to pass two zoning changes (Articles 21 & 23) that could have increased revenue to our town by making our business zones a bit more business-friendly. We wish the Finance Committee would weigh in on the financial impact of zoning articles like these.

As we head into the finale of the budget process, one thing is for certain: it ain't gonna be pretty. It costs more to provide the same town services, and we have less money with which to do it. Each year we are presented with the same old choices: cut services or raise taxes. We cannot sustain our quality of life with this approach: we either lose the quality of life residents want or we price many of those residents out of town.

And we can't just wait for our federal and state leaders to get their act together and bail us out. We need new revenues - like those that Articles 21 & 23 could have provided - and we need to work together to figure out how to get them. We must take two broad approaches to create more revenue for our town: keep revenue in mind as we look at each opportunity and long-range thinking and planning.

As we welcome a new town manager, Larry Shaffer, the town has an opportunity to bring new energy to this challenge. We believe Mr. Shaffer should make increasing revenues a high priority, and we suggest that he designate a new Revenue Committee to help him. This committee would help him look at the full range of revenue generation opportunities, weigh their feasibility and impact, and put together a strategy for closing our current budget gap. Some options include:

Retirement housing. Amherst, like other college towns, is quietly becoming an attractive destination for seniors seeking cultural stimulation and natural beauty. This type of development is attractive for several reasons: it can be clustered, thus using a minimum of land space, and it generates additional property taxes without adding additional, costly population to our schools.

Student housing. The University is adding students. This growth should be something we plan for and work to our favor. If we develop student housing on non-University land, then the town can gain some control over the projects, gain revenue from taxes, and reduce pressure on family or senior rents in other parts of town. We lost an opportunity with the JPI/Hope Church project, which potentially offered $400,000 in annual tax revenues, and could have funded many items that are being cut from our town services - that's almost a third of our entire deficit! Let's make sure the revenue side is seriously considered in the future when making decisions such as this.

Engage the colleges. We should be looking at other college towns for ideas on how to effectively engage our local campuses in the community. These could range from cooperative work on student housing and faculty spin-off businesses to more hardball discussions about water rates and direct contributions to the town on which the colleges' attractiveness partly depends. Mr. Shaffer brings some experience in this area.

Economic development. Some say that business development won't help our bottom line. A Revenue Committee could answer this question and model the effects of various types of business development. One key to economic development success is for the town manager to designate an economic development director to focus these efforts and work to reverse our business-unfriendly image. Our Chamber of Commerce could also step up it's efforts to provide proactive economic development leadership.

A revenue committee could evaluate other revenue opportunities, too. Is there a way to implement a small (1-2 percent) local meals tax? It would raise revenues without affecting our local restaurant owners in any appreciable way. State Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) for our non-taxable University land and local excise assessments could also be increased.

Many in Town Meeting have invoked the work of the master plan, which is now underway, saying that somehow we should put off any and all action until the plan is finished. The master plan will be a big help - but it needs to address the need for new revenue. A Revenue Committee would help provide revenue strategies.

The need for more revenue is clear now; we cannot continue to slash services and raise taxes. Some residents in town sit in polarized camps, hurt by old wounds and unwilling to come together. We in the Amherst Center need to be proactive. New energy needs to move forward a sensible, broad-based revenue strategy. We can't wait. We need to begin now, if we are to be the masters of our own fate.