In a stunning turn of events at Tuesday’s town election, Harvard voters defeated the Proposition 2½ override of $786,000, thereby invalidating the town budget passed at Annual Town Meeting. The vote was 767 in favor of the override, and 853 residents against it.
The defeated override included $684,000 for the omnibus budget in order to ensure “level funding,” or maintenance of the current level of town services. It also included $102,000 for new programs: funding to cover an increase in hours for the Council on Aging director, library personnel funding, and school funding to cover new textbooks and the hiring of a new special education teacher.
Despite the fact that attendees at Town Meeting voted in favor of the budget by a generous majority, the failure of the override article on Election Day means that the town is now without a budget for fiscal year 2009.
Now, it’s back to square one for the tri-boards—the Board of Selectmen, the School Committee, and the Finance Committee—who must scramble to revise the budget, resubmit it to town residents, and have it voted on and approved by July 1.
As a result, there will be another Special Town Meeting and possible override election scheduled sometime in the next few months.
Newly elected selectman Peter Warren was not disappointed in the override’s failure. “I didn’t support the override,” he told the Press in a phone interview. “I would have supported it if they had broken it out on the ballot in the same way that they did for the Town Meeting.”
Lucy Wallace, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen, also knows just how much time and work is involved in the budget process.
“We have to sit down and look at the budget, and we don’t have a lot of time,” she said, noting that the town will be able to factor in an additional $240,000 in state aid that was not reflected in the final override amount.
When asked why she thought the override failed, Wallace referred to the state of the national economy as one possible factor. “I think people are scared,” she said. “The economic news every morning is pretty horrific.”
“Maybe right now people feel like they can afford the override but aren’t sure they can afford it in the next six months. There’s a lot of uncertainty right now,” Wallace continued. “Local politics is one place where people feel like they have the most control. The override was the one place where they could say no to something.”
Wallace hopes that voters will continue to stay involved in this next phase of the process. “I hope all those who participated Saturday at Town Meeting will continue to participate,” she said. “I hope they come to the next Town Meeting, and I hope they come to the polls to vote.”
