Select Board calls emergency Special Town Meeting

In an emergency session last week, with barely a day’s notice, the Select Board met and called for a Special Town Meeting Friday, Dec. 17, to correct a mistake in the amount appropriated by Town Meeting for the current fiscal year. The Special Town Meeting will be held at 10 a.m. in upper Town Hall.

The mistake was in the motion read by Finance Committee Chair Don Ludwig at the May 15 Annual Town Meeting asking voters to approve Article 3, the fiscal 2022 omnibus budget. Simply put, the motion asked for more tax dollars than necessary to pay for the town’s expenses this fiscal year by neglecting to include federal and state school grants totaling $914,332 among the 16 sources of revenue listed in the motion.

At the hastily scheduled December Special Town Meeting, voters will be asked to correct the error by reducing the fiscal 2022 omnibus budget from $33,796,930 to $33,067,865 and lowering the amount to be raised and appropriated from $30,691,262 to $29,796,930. At Tuesday’s tax classification hearing (see story on page 7), Harvard’s assessors determined that $24,993,047 of that amount, also known as the levy, will need to be raised by property taxes.

The change won’t affect the cost of running the town in any way, Town Administrator Tim Bragan told the Select Board. “What it does affect is how much money we raise.” Reducing the appropriated amount will save taxpayers almost a million dollars in taxes, he said.

“It’s not often you get a chance to vote to reduce your taxes,” quipped Select Board Chair Stu Sklar at last Thursday’s emergency meeting. But correcting the error is urgent, he added. Third-quarter tax bills cannot be calculated until the amount to be raised has been settled. And once this year’s tax rate is determined, it must be approved by the Department of Revenue before bills can be mailed.

The cost of delay

Getting all of that done by Dec. 31 leaves scant wiggle room for the two weeks it will take to prepare necessary paperwork for the DOR and get the agency’s approval. If the fiscal 2022 tax rate isn’t set by Dec. 31, third-quarter tax bills will be preliminary and based on last year’s substantially higher tax rate.  Should that happen, town officials are concerned taxpayers will withhold their third-quarter payment until next spring when fourth-quarter bills are mailed, potentially leaving the town with a shortfall in revenue. The town would have to tap its savings and borrow to pay for third-quarter operations, Select Board Chair Sklar told his colleagues. He said that while the town had $3.5 million to $4 million it could tap into, the Finance Department had projected that $5 million to $7 million would be required to cover town expenses through May. “It’s better … to grit our teeth, just do this and fix the problem,” said Sklar.

In a phone interview Bragan said the error was discovered Dec. 1 as Finance Director Jared Mullane and Saltzman reviewed Harvard’s numbers with the DOR. The Open Meeting Law allows for emergency board meetings with less than 48 hours notice when a delay could prevent the board from executing its fiduciary duty in preparing and mailing bills, “which would harm the financial position of the town.”

Sklar posted an agenda Wednesday afternoon. Alice von Loesecke was on vacation, but the remaining four board members were present and voted unanimously to call a Special Town Meeting and to approve the warrant.

The Town Meeting warrant (see sidebar) contains two articles. The first reduces the amount to be raised by taxes by $914,332.

The second is being done at the request of Harvard’s bond counsel and is unrelated to the first. Article 2 asks Special Town Meeting to ratify the votes of the October 16 session of Town Meeting. The agency, said Bragan, seeks assurance that the two-thirds majority October votes that authorized the borrowing of $2.6 million for a new senior center and $965,096 for a fire truck are valid. Both measures also passed at Town Election on Nov. 3, but Sklar told the Press that the agency thought it unusual for such large borrowings to be undertaken in the fall. “They’ve gotten us excellent rates,” he said, and the board thought it prudent to honor their request.

Harvard’s Charter requires a quorum of at least 50 voters to be present at any Town Meeting, annual or special, before Moderator Bill Barton can gavel it to order. That means, Sklar suggested, that every board member needs to bring 10 friends to the Dec. 17 meeting. Masks will be required.