In an effort to meet the budget dictates of Proposition 2½, approved by Massachusetts voters in 1980, the School Committee was faced with reducing the $2.3 million school budget by 5 percent, and recommended the elimination of the entire school athletic program and all extracurricular activities. Also on the chopping block were two teachers, field trips, and 50 percent of the expenditures on books and supplies. The school superintendent said, “This budget does not represent what I personally feel is necessary to run the school system, and does not maintain quality education in Harvard.”
Representatives from Montachusett area towns, of which Harvard is one, heard presentations from two engineering consulting firms on the feasibility of creating a regional solid waste disposal and energy recovery facility. The firms said that such a facility “could reduce a town’s landfill requirements by more than 80 percent and could produce electricity and steam worth about $3 million annually.”
Seventy-five percent of the seniors who responded to a questionnaire distributed by the Housing for the Elderly Committee said they wanted to see the town take action to provide housing for Harvard’s elderly citizens.
—Based on reports in the old Harvard Post
