With a newly increased 3% property surcharge tax, plus additional state funding, the Community Preservation Committee will have a larger budget than ever. At last week’s Select Board meeting, candidates for open seats on next year’s committee disagreed as to whether to spend the additional money, or save it.
With Beth Williams’ and John Lee’s terms expiring June 30, the Select Board faces an unusual situation with having to choose among two incumbent committee members and three new candidates for just three open seats.
The Select Board interviewed all the candidates on June 6. They will not be voting on them for another week, but if Williams and John Lee are reappointed, there will be one open spot left to fill. The other three candidates are Jane Biering, Stu Sklar, and Dee Lee.
The candidates were asked what they see as CPC’s future priorities, given the increased funds they will have available next year, and they disagreed somewhat in their answers.
CPC Chair Williams told the Select Board during her interview, “Just because we have [more] funds doesn’t mean we have to spend them,” and later added: “Everybody wants things, but do we really need it? Is this a priority for the town?”
Williams believes that if the increased funds are spent, an immediate need the committee should address is affordable housing, which the town does not have a lot of, she said later in an interview with the Press.
“A lot of seniors are being taxed out of town … John Lee and I voted for [a tax increase] but with reservations … this was tripling the fee that people would see on their tax bills,” she said. Williams conceded that the town can always vote to reduce the tax from 3% back to 1.1% in the future, if the increase is becoming more burdensome than helpful for citizens. Williams said she reluctantly supported the tax increase because of the recent tax raises to support construction of a new elementary school.
John Lee, who used to serve on the Harvard Parks and Recreation Commission, acknowledged the need for funding of new town athletic fields. “The town has grown and there’s always been concern that when you overplay a field you just wear it out, they need time to recover,” he said. Lee believes the project has not been funded yet because the Parks and Recreation Commission has not settled on a parcel of land, which is necessary to calculate required funding.
Applicant Sklar said all of the increased funds should be spent. “I come to this [committee] with an agenda,” he said. “I never liked that we weren’t at 3% … it drives me nuts when people leave money on the table.” Sklar said he is “all for more [athletic] fields” but also sees affordable housing and land conservation to be top priorities.
Biering, in her interview, said, “I guess you’d have to have been living under a rock to not have heard the screaming about playing fields,” and suggested that the proposal to fund new athletic fields be looked at very carefully. She also acknowledged that the lack of affordable housing is an area the town needs to improve. But ultimately, Biering said that with the power the extra money brings, the committee should decide on their top priorities.
Dee Lee, who has been a financial advisor for 30 different U.S. state treasurers, told the Select Board, “I don’t have a bias, I don’t have a priority … I would treat every applicant equally.”
Funding increased
In February the Select Board voted to increase the Community Preservation Act property surcharge tax from 1.1% to 3%. The increase was followed by a vote in favor at Harvard’s Town Election in May. The Select Board supported the increase, as did the Finance Committee, but a majority of CPC members did not. “A majority felt the timing wasn’t right,” Williams said during an interview with the Press.
The increase to a 3% tax has its benefits: depending on the amount in the state’s CPA budget, Harvard will be eligible for a second round of state funding. Essentially, the town would get to take a “second bite” as Williams put it, at the state funds, if there is money left over after the first round of allocation.
The Community Preservation Act passed by the state Legislature in 2000 allows municipalities to impose a 1 to 3% property tax surcharge. 195 Massachusetts communities—or 55% of the state’s municipalities—have joined the CPA.
The state matches a percentage of the funds generated, and towns are allowed to use the money in four areas: affordable housing, historic preservation, open space, and recreation.
The CPC is not required to spend its entire budget every year. However, it must put at least 10% of the available money into each of the four buckets.
In Harvard, as it seems, the CPC has historically given more money to conservation projects than parks and recreation projects. However, according to Maiore, this is because the committee typically receives more applications related to conservation and those projects require fewer resources from the town.
When the new members are appointed, the full five-member committee will move forward with funding decisions during the fall.
