As the Finance Committee prepared this week to deliver its recommendations for next year’s budget to the Select Board, a Proposition 2 1/2 override, the first in 12 years, seemed inevitable.
The committee was scheduled to vote Wednesday evening, Feb. 26, on a fiscal 2021 budget that, before adjustment, totaled nearly $34 million, but even after spending reductions and some fiscal magic, had an estimated deficit of $300,000.
State law requires that a municipal budget be balanced, and at their penultimate budget meeting last week FinCom members appeared to consent to—but did not vote on—a series of recommendations compiled by Town Administrator Tim Bragan, Assistant Town Administrator Marie Sobalvarro, and Finance Director Lori Bolasevich. These included increases in estimated revenue and changes to the means by which some services are funded, as well as reductions to the spending requests of town departments and the schools.
In spite of these adjustments, however, Bragan told the Press Tuesday that to ensure a budget that is balanced and can sustain level services in the coming year, he believes the Select Board will need to ask voters for an estimated $300,000 tax override at Spring Town Meeting and Town Election. A $300,000 override would add approximately $0.24 per $1,000 of assessed value to the fiscal 2021 tax bill of a Harvard homeowner, or an additional $120 for the owner of a $500,000 home. The actual number will depend on the total assessed value of Harvard properties next year.
To get to the override number, FinCom is expected to ask town departments to reduce their budget and small warrant requests by $277,000; the schools were asked last week to trim $274,000 (see article). However, without some additional fiscal measures, including adjustments to estimated fiscal 2021 revenue, plus the enactment of higher fees and changes to sources of funding, even deeper cuts would have been required. Bragan and finance team members have, for example, increased their estimate of the motor vehicle excise taxes the town will collect in fiscal 2021 by $10,000, and they have raised their forecast of interest income by $40,000. Bragan has also proposed that one-half ($35,300) of the salary of the Fire Department’s existing full-time firefighter and EMT position be paid for with money in the revolving ambulance fund, rather than by taxpayers. A new part-time Board of Health coordinator could be funded with an increase in fees charged the 10 private haulers who collect residential and commercial trash in Harvard, and increases in Transfer Station sticker fees could cover the unexpected jump in the cost of recycling paper.
These and other measures will be voted by the Finance Committee at Wednesday night’s meeting. The final recommendations will be presented at an open all-boards meeting scheduled for this Saturday, Feb. 29, at 9 a.m. in upper Town Hall. Then Tuesday, March 3, the budget goes to the Select Board, whose five members, under the town charter, have final responsibility for approving and presenting it to Town Meeting on May 2.
An override allows a town to increase the amount it taxes property owners beyond the limit set by state law. Voters must approve the increase at Town Meeting and the ballot box, and once enacted, it becomes permanent, embedded in the amount the town can levy on taxpayers each year. With a jump in excluded debt already planned for next year to cover the cost of financing the new elementary school, an override would further increase the taxes of Harvard homeowners. Harvard voted its last override in 2008 when it narrowly approved (674-612) an additional assessment of $200,000 in property taxes to fund that year’s budget.
