Harvard may have to address a budget shortfall of greater size and more immediacy than anticipated even a few weeks ago. This letter is to suggest that budget reductions be sought from the two programs that are the town’s largest budget items: special education and the Police Department. It is possible that the budget shortfall cannot be addressed without changes to these line items—or an increase in taxes.
Special education will constitute 15 to 20 percent of the total town budget. I am a supporter of offering special education services to children in our schools. Though more than 15 percent of the total town budget might strike one as bordering on the absurd, this letter is not to address the level of service or the definition of special needs. Instead, it is to suggest that if we address a gross inequity in how the program is paid for, we might contribute significantly to a reduction in the expense this program represents to the town.
The suggestion is that the services provided through the special education program be provided on a needs-adjusted basis, with the possibility of reducing the town’s expense for the program by up to 50 percent.
Families benefiting from special ed services currently don’t pay any of the expense. Instead, the town’s taxpayers are spending the equivalent of prep school tuition for some children whose parents live in $300,000 to $1 million homes, whose extended families aren’t paying for their special education and whose close friends haven’t been asked to contribute. Instead, fixed-income retirees, police, teachers, taxpayers, et al. are paying the bill. Many of the state’s educational programs (UMass financial aid, for instance) are provided on a financial need basis. This suggestion is that recipient families qualify on a financial need basis, like applying for financial aid.
The second suggestion is to base the level of police services on the historic level of policing in town needed over the decades for which “crime” statistics are available.
Various town boards have been struggling with these budget issues for years, with intelligence and persistence. I apologize up front for dropping in gratuitous suggestions without having worked in the vineyards, and I understand that the road to change (through the state, in all likelihood) would be painful.
James Saalfield
Woodchuck Hill Road
