Override scuttled: What's next?

BY Mary Carey
Staff Writer

Published on May 04, 2007

Once voters rejected the proposed $2.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 override aimed at softening the coming cuts in the town's schools and services, Amherst School Committee Chairman Andrew Churchill posed the question:

"Now what?"

Now what, indeed. It's back to Plan A, otherwise known as the 1 percent budget, after the increase it represents over last year's spending. It amounts to deep cuts - to the schools and to other services across the board, including fire and police.

Voters defeated the override by a modest margin on Tuesday, 53-47 percent, or 267 votes, with 2,383 residents saying "Yes" to an override and 2,650 saying "No." Turnout was 31.46 percent.

The Select Board, whose responsibility it is to propose overrides, could vote to put a smaller override on a townwide ballot either before or after Town Meeting - which ultimately passes the budget - when it convenes on May 7.

Under state law, the town clerk has to wait 35 days after the Select Board approves an override to hold the election, which means the earliest another override could be held is mid-June.

But Town Meeting could pass two budgets - the 1 percent spending plan and a less draconian contingency budget, if it knows another override vote is coming.

The Select Board also could let Town Meeting take the lead and decide whether to pass two budgets. Then, the board could propose an override.

"At this moment, I believe the wisest course of action is to wait for Town Meeting," Gerald Weiss, the board chairman, wrote in an email Wednesday.

The Finance Committee, meanwhile, will attempt to craft another semblance of a plan for future spending, Alice Carlozzi, its chairwoman, said Wednesday.

"We'll almost certainly have to be back next year for an override," Carlozzi added.

For its supporters, one of the most disappointing things about the override's failure to pass was that it had been part of a multi-year plan for getting spiraling costs under control. Besides spending caps and revenue-enhancement measures, it included a commitment from town officials who had supported it that they wouldn't ask for another override for three years.

The multi-year aspect of the plan had been its chief virtue for some supporters.

"With the plan that we no longer have, town staff and committees weren't going to have to be sitting down and figuring out budgets for months and months every year," Carlozzi said. "The enormous amount of time that would have been available for figuring out efficiencies of service and trying new things - that's gone."

The vote

Override opponents said residents had simply voted their pocketbooks.

"This was a silent-majority outcome," said senior activist Isaac BenEzra.

Supporters, many of whom have children in the schools, said that not enough parents had come out to vote.

Besides cutting about two dozen teaching positions, the 1 percent budget does not fully fund five formerly grant-funded firefighters. It would not maintain two police officer positions. It would reduce the number of courses high school students could take a year from the current 14 to 13, among other reductions to the schools. Also, War Memorial Pool would be closed.

Opponents who gathered at the V.F.W. on 457 Main St. to celebrate their victory, said some Amherst residents don't get it that spiraling property taxes mean some people can't afford to keep living here.

A woman in her early 80s had told "No" organizer Kevin Joy at the polls that she promised her recently deceased husband that she would never sell the family home, Joy said. But she's having trouble paying taxes. "She's desperate," Joy said. "That's the kind of thing people don't understand."

Although not as decisive as Select Board member Hwei-Ling Greeney would have liked it to be, the vote would send town officials a message, said Greeney, who campaigned hard for the "No" side. "Now I feel we're in a strong position to say, 'You need to go by what the voters want, which is to live within our means.'"

Override supporters said the 267-vote margin hardly constitutes a mandate.

"I think it's pretty positive," said former Select Board member Bryan Harvey, at Town Meeting members Patricia Blauner's and Peter Blier's house, where supporters met on Tuesday night.

"This is the hardest sell you can imagine," Harvey said. "Big number, multi-year, all the risk about - will it work?" There is no harder sell, and the result is we have to change 130 minds. We'll find 130 people," Harvey said.

"We have to figure out what the town really wants to do. There was some doubt about this particular package, but strong support for doing something."

Baer Tierkel, a supporter, said parents hadn't turned out in the numbers he had hoped to see. "It's up to parents to have a voice in how our schools are financed and what their level of quality is," Tierkel said.

He said he was disappointed by some residents he would have expected to support an override.

"Amherst politics always surprises me," Tierkel said. "There are a lot of people who align themselves as liberals, as progressives, as believing in using taxes to distribute the wealth.

"I understand people who are against taxes and big government being on the 'No' side," Tierkel said.

"I don't understand people who believe in government's role in providing for schools and for services to those who can't afford it, aligning with the 'No' side."