When town and school administrators put down their scissors at the end of February, nearly half a million dollars had been snipped from the fiscal 2024 budget, eliminating talk of a looming tax override. While some of those snips were inconsequential or covered by other funding sources, others represented lost services for the coming fiscal year. This week the Press took a look at what was left on the cutting room floor.
No new police officer
The largest cut to the town budget and the one with the greatest impact is removing the request for a new full-time police officer. Police Chief James Babu justified his request to the Finance Committee back in January by saying that Harvard has the smallest police force in the area and hasn’t added a full-time officer since he himself was hired 20 years ago. In order to provide 24/7 coverage to the town, shifts are covered by officers working overtime, and some shifts have only one officer. Babu said having two officers for every shift would require the town to hire two more full-time officers, and he was hoping to hire them over the next two years.
Filling the shifts is becoming difficult, Babu told the Press. He said he and some of the older officers used to enjoy working overtime, but the next generation values their free time more. He added that some are still happy to have the extra hours, and the officers understand that the cuts are necessary. He also uses reserve officers to fill shifts, typically retired police or those who work in other towns looking to pick up some extra money. But he currently has only one reserve officer, and said they are harder to find since stricter training requirements were put into place as part of the state’s police reform law a few years ago. He remains confident in his department’s coverage of the town though. “We make it work,” he said.
No more town-provided short-term disability insurance
The town has paid for short-term disability insurance for its nonunion employees and Department of Public Works employees for about 10 years, according to Town Administrator Tim Bragan. But this benefit fell victim to the chopping block this year.
Bragan told the Finance Committee it was rarely used, maybe once a year or once every other year, and employees could use their paid time off instead to cover an illness or non-work-related injury that prevented them from working for weeks at a time. The benefit paid 60% of an employee’s salary for 12 weeks, with a cap of $1,400.
Assistant Town Administrator Marie Sobalvarro told the Press school employees pay for their own short-term disability insurance, and she is looking into how employees losing this benefit could purchase their own, possibly through insurance carriers the town uses.
No extra hours for COA van trips
Council on Aging Director Debbie Thompson asked for an additional 150 hours for van drivers in fiscal 2024 so that the COA could plan more trips. Thompson told the Press the COA began adding some trips last year as the pandemic eased up, and she wanted to bring the number of outings up to pre-pandemic levels. She said she still might be able to add a few, but she is worried that there will be more demand in the coming year for rides to medical appointments that seniors might have put off during the pandemic. She added that rides to appointments and grocery stores will not be affected by this cut.
Fewer trees removed
Tree Warden JC Ferguson requested about $5,000 more for removing trees this year. Ferguson told the Press the cost of tree work has gone up nearly 30%, mainly because of a doubling of the cost to pick up the wood—from $725 per load to $1,460 per load. He said most of the trees that are taken down are dead or dying, so the wood has little marketable value. In addition the cost of a tree crew increased from $3,320 per day to $3,900. This budget cut will result in losing about a full day of tree work over what was done last year, which Ferguson said will leave more dangerous trees along the roadside, increasing the risk of personal or property damage.
No grant writer for climate committee
The Climate Initiative Committee asked for $10,000 for a grant writer to identify and apply for available grants that would help the committee meet the goals of its action plan. Bragan told the Finance Committee it didn’t make sense to budget for a grant writer when the climate committee had not identified how many or which grants they would be applying for. He said it would make more sense to take money for a grant writer out of the Capital Stabilization Fund if needed in the future.
Committee Chair Ellen Sachs Leicher told the Press her committee members don’t have the expertise to identify which grants would be worth pursuing, and short application timelines would make funding the position in time to hire a grant writer difficult. Sachs Leicher said she is looking into receiving grant writing help from the Montachusett Regional Planning Commission.
Fewer road lines painted
DPW Director Tim Kilhart asked to increase his budget for painting road lines by nearly 60%, not to add new lines to roads, but to maintain the new lines that were painted last year using funds left over from the state’s 2022 Winter Recovery Assistance Program. Kilhart told the Press the Police Department had requested additional lines on some town roads, and he spent about $8,000 of WRAP money to do that work. Now those lines need to be maintained. Kilhart said his previous annual line-painting budget never covered every road in town, and vendor prices recently increased 50%. The $8,000 cut to his request means he’ll have to be even more careful choosing which lines to repaint this fiscal year.
Finger-crossing on repairs, services
Some of the cuts fall into the area of planning for less and hoping less happens. Kilhart asked for an additional $8,000 to have on hand for Transfer Station repairs because an expensive piston has broken on two of the older trash compactors over the last two years. One of the failures put the compactor out of service for months because funding to fix it wasn’t available until the new fiscal year started.
The Select Board expense budget was cut by $2,000 for purchased services. Sobalvarro told the Press the town is hoping for fewer job postings this year, as well as fewer requests from the Select Board for unbudgeted projects such as surveying or consultant fees.
The budget for town counsel was also cut by $5,000. Sobalvarro said the Planning Board, with relatively new membership last year, relied heavily on Mark Lanza’s services, but the hope is that he will be needed less in fiscal 2024.
Animal control holds its own
One department that won’t be reducing its services to the town despite a $500 cut in its $750 expense budget is animal control. Assistant officer Ann Bamford told the Press the town probably cut the budget because she and officer Paul Willard “pretty much run it at our own expense.” As the official pound keeper, she said she rarely has to house a dog for any length of time. She spent a few thousand dollars of her own money to build dog pens because she wanted a decent place for dogs to stay. That way, she said, “I’m not beholden to anybody. If I need to house a sick chicken there, I do.”
Schools cut administrator, tutor hours, and supplies
A final budget for the schools remains a moving target. On Feb. 15, members of the School Committee and administrators announced voluntary cuts and savings that totaled a quarter-million dollars. By eliminating the one-year-old position of director of instructional design, the schools estimated a saving of $127,500. And a reduction in the state’s assessment for transporting special education students to out-of-district classes allowed the department to reduce spending by an additional $188,000.
Losing the instructional designer is especially painful, its consequences felt by other employees who will assume the current director’s responsibilities. Superintendent Linda Dwight and the School Committee had long sought to create the position and finally succeeded this fiscal year. But Dwight and School Committee Chair Abby Besse told the Press they were confident the duties could be handled by other administrators and members of the school leadership team. Besse said that the new elementary, middle school, and high school principals were particularly well-versed in curriculum design and the schools’ and their offerings would not suffer. Other duties, such as ensuring school curricula represent diverse perspectives, will fall to the diversity, equity, and inclusion coordinator and other administrators. So will responsibility for professional development in those areas, formerly the responsibility of the director.
An additional $60,000 in savings was achieved by cuts in budgets for substitute teachers and tutors, as well as curriculum supplies and the budget for school maintenance, including HVAC systems. Dwight assured the Press there would be no reduction in tutoring for math and reading at Hildreth Elementary School, a program seen as essential to making up for lost learning during the pandemic. Because of their reduced hours, however, tutors would have less time for collaborating with classroom teachers or handling administrative duties.
School cuts and savings reduced the department’s fiscal 2024 spending request to the 66% percent of town revenue—minus benefits—allocated to the district by the Select Board and Finance Department. But with the release of Gov. Maura Healey’s preliminary budget, the financial picture has changed, with more revenue available to the town and schools than originally forecast.
As this week’s edition of the paper was being written, the schools raised their spending request, a matter that was to be considered at the March 8 meeting of the Finance Committee (see story on page 1). While the schools are unlikely to rescind any of the cuts detailed in this article, its final budget remains a work in progress.
—John Osborn
