Voters at Town Meeting handily passed—and later at the polls narrowly passed—the tier 2 Proposition 2½ override to give the schools an extra $113,500 to pay for an additional Bromfield math or science teacher, another elementary math tutor, a part-time special education coordinator, a sixth elementary school bus, and funds to join a program allowing Bromfield students to take online classes.
The Finance Committee did not recommend the override, Article 9. Finance Committee member Steve Colwell cautioned that the fiscal year 2008 omnibus budget does not include increases for teachers and other unionized town workers, which will have to be added to the budget whenever the stalled union contract negotiations are settled, perhaps requiring another override vote later in the year.
However, virtually all of the speakers addressing Town Meeting came out strongly in favor of the article. Several made the point that Harvard actually spends less per pupil than the state average, so school overspending isn’t driving the need for the override. They argued that the shortfall occurs because the town receives much less state aid than comparable towns, and urged Harvard officials and voters to lobby for more state aid to reduce the need for large annual overrides just to maintain the schools’ quality.
“With taxes so high, we wonder why we can’t balance the budget,” Warren Avenue resident Bruce Leicher said. He complained that per-pupil spending for Harvard’s students who are not in special education would actually be less next year than it was in 1993, even if both operating budget overrides pass. Leicher blamed cutbacks in state aid; noting that Boxborough received $2,600 per pupil in state aid this year, while Harvard only got $1,100. When Acton lobbied hard for more state aid last year, their allotment doubled to $2,000, while Harvard’s only went up by $100, according to Leicher.
Nils Nordberg of Slough Road worried that the town now has a structural imbalance in its finances, with expenses growing faster than its revenue. While agreeing that the town ought to lobby for more state funding, he also advocated working to attract more commercial development to help pay for town expenses. “We desperately need a larger source of income. We need nonresidential development—otherwise, we’ll be here every year, trying to squeeze more from a rock.”
Several speakers pointed out that Harvard’s schools, while still good, are struggling to provide the excellent education they are noted for. “The schools can no longer afford kids’ athletics, the media arts program, industrial arts, Latin, introduction to French for high-schoolers, buses, adequate support staff, and textbooks,” Bonnie Sweeney of Babbit Lane complained. With two older children now in college, and a younger one in ninth grade, she said it was obvious that much has been lost from the system in the last few years. She urged voters to pass Article 9.
School board candidate Stu Sklar pointed out that the override would only cost the average household an additional $58 a year, and that nine of the ten members of the school board and Board of Selectmen supported the article. “This is not fluff—we’re trying to stop the slide of the last six years,” he said.
Robert Lerner of West Bare Hill Road did sound a note of caution regarding the override. While he said he was not speaking either for or against the additional spending, he pointed out that 3 percent of Harvard’s households have incomes below the poverty line and often can’t afford to pay even a small increase in their property taxes. “We need to recognize 10 percent of the town is elderly, and amongst them are people” in poverty, whose needs also should be met, Lerner argued.
However, the overriding sentiment of the speakers, which came up repeatedly, was that Harvard has an obligation to its children’s future to keep up the quality of the schools. “It’s a moral responsibility of the town to support education to the best of its ability,” Ken Nickerson of Cameron Road said. “We’re falling well short of other countries, especially in math and science. If a town like Harvard can’t support education, I worry about our country.”
