No one has asked me why I voted against the recent override (and all the others for that matter) but I thought I’d share my reasons with you anyway. No, this isn’t some knee-jerk budget-slashing screed from an anti-government know-nothing. Rather, it is an attempt at a thoughtful view of our town’s fiscal plight by a 30-year resident of Harvard who has taught and practiced public-sector budgeting for many years and, as well, has had some educational management experience while chairing the board of the Parker Charter School for nine years.
I believe our budget problems began many years ago when we shamelessly accepted local aid dollars that included a Fort Devens population we didn’t serve. The receipt of this disproportionately large amount of revenue allowed our town to establish a cost-generating structure which, though it looked affordable then, was certain to be unsustainable whenever our state aid returned to an appropriate level.
Specifically, I believe the “extra” revenue permitted the town to construct a physical plant and hire and pay a labor force whose cost would eventually be excessive when revenues returned to true levels.
I take no satisfaction as one amongst others who stood at Town Meeting and warned of the future price of accepting this ill-begotten revenue.
And now it’s ironic that some want to go back to the same source that got us into this mess—Devens. Neither some tax windfall from commerce on “our” land nor fee-for-service students, (who we probably ought to educate for free as repayment for past lack of service), represent worthy solutions on which to build the town’s future.
In recent years local aid justice has returned. Our share of local aid is distributed, in the case of Chapter 70 school aid, based on what the state calls “aggregate wealth” made up of two components: property value and income. It’s kind of a back-door progressive form of taxation in that it expects each community to pay a share of its “foundation” school budget that is in direct proportion to its ability to pay. It turns out that Harvard’s ability as calculated by this method is so great that were it not for the 82.5 percent cap on share, we would have received not the $300,000 additional aid we expect but $600,000 less, by my calculation. Lottery aid is apportioned on the basis of property value per capita as well, so we’re less deserving than most there too. Therefore, in addition to the shamelessness of our whining to the state for more money, we should be wary that the cap on our expected share could vanish as well. And lastly, where do we think the additional aid we seek would come from? A reduction in aid to a less deserving community (to be named), a tax increase, or a spending cut of some other state service?
The other principal component of our fiscal plight is our apparent lack of understanding of what a “level-service” budget is. We seem to confuse input with output. What is presented to us under the banner of level service (output) is in fact level staffing (input). The service output of our schools, for example, is more than its curriculum, it’s faculty and its MCAS scores. The lengthy document provided by the schools prior to Town Meeting contains no mention of how the system measures its output and why the way it achieves that output cannot be produced for less cost. Is the pedagogy, the curriculum, the staffing so perfected that no other way, no less costly way, can achieve the same result? I don’t believe it. This focus on productivity is, of course, not limited to the school system but should be the kind of thinking that must go on continually in all town departments.
I’d be happy to be convinced that I’ve got it all wrong, but for now I will continue to vote against any override until I see evidence that the true source of our problem is acknowledged and service alternatives are thoughtfully considered.
Bob Moran is a former member of the Finance Committee.
