If the questions asked and answers given at Tuesday night’s Proposition 2½ override information session are any indication, the town’s senior boards have work to do in educating voters about the financial decisions that await them a week from now at Town Meeting and Town Election.
“The news isn’t what’s in the budget and what’s out. It’s that none of us can tell for sure,” remarked longtime resident Paul Green after the meeting.
The weather was miserable, but two dozen residents and officials trekked to the Town Hall meeting room to hear members of the Select Board, Finance Committee, and School Committee present their views on the fiscal 2025 budget and ballot questions. An equal number logged in via Zoom, where technical difficulties delayed the meeting by 10 minutes.
Remote attendees complained later they were unable to hear the presentation or participate in the Q&A session that followed. On Wednesday morning, Harvard’s League of Women Voters president, Stephanie Opalka, announced the league would host an all-Zoom follow-up information session Thursday, April 4, at 7 p.m.
This year’s budget is different
While passage of an annual budget typically requires a simple majority at Town Meeting, usually with little or no debate, this year is different. First, on April 6, attendees must approve the $33.9 million fiscal 2025 budget recommended by the Select Board. But then, at Town Election April 9, voters must decide, by voting for or against two tax overrides—Questions 2A and 2B on the ballot—whether to pay for the entire budget or to reduce it to a lesser amount.
Without the two overrides, Finance Committee Chair Eric Ward warned, current town services would need to be severely cut to match the $33.1 million in revenues the town expects to receive without additional tax dollars. The Select Board, Finance Committee, and School Committee say that such a budget is inconsistent with the goals and values of the town and would be unacceptable to residents. (For an analysis of the scope and impact of these cuts, see tables on page 7.)
The first override, 2A—sometimes referred to as the “tier 1” or “level-service override”—provides enough additional money, $423,902, for town departments and the schools to continue operating as they have for the past year.
The second override, 2B, referred to as the “tier 2” or “mid-level growth” override, provides an additional $329,062 for a total override of $752,964. It is called a mid-level growth option because it provides some but not all of the additional personnel and expense dollars that departments asked for in their budget requests last fall.
In this year’s Finance Committee report (available at Town Hall or online) Ward wrote that “a level-service budget … does not provide us with any opportunity to improve or grow.” In many aspects, he wrote, “a level-service budget is a reductive target that results in progressive decline. The needs of our people are not stagnant. The requirements for providing a quality education do not stay the same year after year. Level-service itself is an inaccurate term.”
In an email to the Press Wednesday morning, Green wrote that he believes he has attended every Town Meeting since moving to town in 1984. “This is the most complicated set of proposals that I’ve ever seen put before the citizens of this town,” he said. “If people don’t understand the information, they are unlikely to endorse the proposals.”
The six panelists at Tuesday night’s meeting did their best to provide guidance. Ward wanted viewers to understand that the first step is to pass the budget. “A vote for the budget is not a vote for an override,” he said. Voters will decide that question at the polls. If Town Meeting attendees reject the budget, however, the Select Board will be forced to return with another at a special town meeting before July 1. Such a rejection would render ballot questions 2A and 2B irrelevant.
But there was a lack of understanding on display in both the questions asked by the audience and the sometimes inconsistent answers of the panelists that characterized much of the session. A sampling of questions is as follows:
Q: Is there an additional police officer in the base-level budget?
A: There is.
Q: What happens if someone proposes a friendly amendment to the budget at Town Meeting?
A: “We’ll reject it,” said Select Board member Charles Oliver. “We’re not messing with the budget.”
Q: What if an unfriendly amendment passes?
A: “It can’t happen,” said Oliver. But Select Board Chair Rich Maiore said he would look into it.
Q: Would failure of the overrides force the library and Council on Aging to reduce their hours of operation?
A: “Yes,” said the panelists; “No,” the Press reports elsewhere in this issue.
Q: How can voters be sure the money in the overrides will be spent in the manner spelled out in 2A and 2B?
A: The motion to pass the budget will state that the money must “be spent for the purposes therein.”
A rubric for voters
It was left to School Committee member Shannon Molloy to offer some of the clearest guidance of the evening—a simple rubric for voters to follow depending on their level of support for either override:
- Regardless of how you feel about either override, vote “Yes” for the fiscal 2025 omnibus budget (Article 10) at Town Meeting.
- If you oppose any override, vote “No” on both Questions 2A and 2B at Town Election.
- If you support the level-service (tier 1) but not the mid-level growth (tier 2) override, vote “Yes” on 2A and “No” on 2B.
- If you support the mid-growth override (2B) vote “Yes” for 2B, which includes 2A dollars.
- If you support 2B but also want to ensure 2A passes, vote “Yes” for both.
Suzie Allen of the School Committee observed that Tuesday night’s attendees were among the best-informed in town and wondered how the boards planned to educate the majority of voters still in the dark. “Will we discuss these nuances at Town Meeting?” she asked,
Select Board Chair Rich Maiore, one of the panelists, said that many attendees looked to Town Meeting “as the place where they get informed.” Added Charles Oliver, “You’re going to have a lot of people driving the conversation with questions from the crowd … So I don’t think there’s going to be a lack of information or discussion about this.”
Members from several committees present the effect of a failed override on their budgets and urge the public to support an override. From left, Select Board member Charles Oliver; School Committee members Shannon Molloy and Abby Besse, Finance Committee members Eric Ward and Mike Derse, and chair of the Select Board Rich Maiore. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
