Town administration and school officials told the Finance Committee Tuesday afternoon they would use any dollars beyond those required to maintain their current operations to fill critical slots in their organizations.
They were responding to a request by the Select Board to say how they would spend the extra money provided by a $350,000 tax override. Finance department policy recommends that 35% of any extra revenue be allocated to town departments and 65% to the schools. But neither amount will be available unless voters first approve an override of $504,582 at April’s Annual Town Meeting and Town Election—the amount needed to maintain services at their current level—and then approve an additional $350,000 to pay for additional staff.
Town Administrator Tim Bragan said Town Hall would use its $100,000 share to hire a full-time administrative assistant ($48,994) for the Department of Public Works, the only department without one, and to increase the hours of the administrative assistant who currently supports the Board of Health to 35 hours per week ($20,800). However, in this scenario, the Board of Health expense budget would be cut $3,500, because, Bragan said, that’s the average amount the board has typically returned to the town, unspent, in past years.
School Committee Chair Abby Besse said the schools would use their $250,000 to hire a full-time athletic director ($100,000) and a special education teacher for either Hildreth Elementary School or the Bromfield School ($95,000). (See story on page 4.)
All four employees would be eligible for benefits, which Finance Director Jared Mullane and Human Resources Director Marie Sobalvarro estimate would add roughly $16,000 per employee to the budget, for a total of $64,000.
This latest round of budgeting follows the appearance by FinCom Chair Eric Ward before the Select Board Feb. 6 to present his committee’s suggestions for overcoming a $1.2 million deficit between expected revenue and total departmental spending requests in fiscal 2025. The committee recommended the amount be raised by a two-tier tax override.
First, voters would be asked to approve a Proposition 2½ tax override large enough to keep town departments and the schools operating at their current levels of service. Then, voters would be asked to go a step further and approve an additional override, this one large enough to pay for the additional employees and equipment that departments and the schools said they need in fiscal 2025 to improve the efficiency and quality of their operations.
Consequences of the override vote
Without the first override, town departments and the schools would be forced to severely cut their services; without the second, they would continue to operate with current staff, their budgets pressed by the rising cost of benefits and insurance, salaries, and the lingering effects of last year’s inflation.
Each tier requires a vote to override the state’s Proposition 2½, allowing the town to increase the tax levy on real estate and personal property above the limit set by state law: a 2.5% increase over the previous year’s tax levy plus the assessed value of new construction. A majority of voters must approve each override first at Town Meeting and then again at the ballot box. Once enacted, an override becomes permanent, the increase embedded in the base amount the town may increase each year. A revised forecast presented by Mullane shows that passage of an override this year lowers the deficit that Harvard will face in future years.
But last Tuesday, Select Board members balked at the size of the second override amount—nearly $780,000—that would be needed to satisfy every budget request. Channeling the reservations of his colleagues, Chair Rich Maiore said that while he believed every departmental request was desirable, he preferred a more incremental approach, and he asked FinCom, town administrators, and the School Committee to figure out what could be achieved with less than half that amount, a $350,000 increase.
FinCom took no vote Tuesday on the plans offered by Bragan and Besse. FinCom’s near-unanimous vote two weeks ago for a two-tiered, $1.2 million override has not been retracted and the School Committee continues to advocate for it, saying voters should be allowed to decide.
The decision is now in the hands of the Select Board, however. It is scheduled to meet Feb. 20 and must decide by Feb. 23 whether to place an override on the April 6 Town Meeting warrant and the April 9 Town Election ballot and what form it should take. After that, FinCom will vote whether to recommend whatever the Select Board decides.
