CLT UPDATE
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Legislature winds "Ticking Time
Bomb's" doomsday spring tighter
Giving retired state and municipal workers an
additional $120 a year to keep up with inflation might seem like no big
deal — except that those who will be forced to foot the bill can't
afford it.
Yet legislators appear poised to impose yet another expensive mandate on
government in the form of cost-of-living adjustments for present and
future retirees, which all told could increase the cost of retirement
benefits by $20 billion over the next 20 years....
Pension obligations recently prompted one California city to declare
bankruptcy and many others are on the brink. Yet that seems to matter
little to Bay State legislators anxious to make points with public
employees and the unions that represent them....
What it would likely mean, if passed, would be higher taxes or, for the
many communities already taxing at the maximum level allowed by
Proposition 2½, further reductions in essential services like education
and public safety.
This is an irresponsible piece of legislation that should be scrapped.
A Salem News editorial
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Can't spend what you don't have; or can you?
Now the city of Vallejo, hit by the slumping housing market
and the economic slowdown, says it is in deep financial trouble. It's blaming
contracts with public employee unions, much like the city of San Diego.
But unlike San Diego, the Vallejo City Council voted unanimously to declare
bankruptcy and ask a federal court to break its union contracts -- a move that
experts say could set a precedent.
An attorney in Santa Monica who worked on a previous government bankruptcy that
also drew national media attention, that of Orange County, said cities and
unions will watch the Vallejo case....
Vallejo said in a filing with a federal bankruptcy court last month that it has
been running a small general deficit for three years, which is expected to
balloon to $17 million in the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The big problem is said to be contracts with police, firefighters and other
unions. General fund revenue is expected to be $77.9 million, less than the
$79.4 million needed for labor contracts, not to mention other costs....
[Mayor Osby] Davis said Vallejo's situation should be cautionary in another way.
He said a citizens committee reported in 1993 that if employee-benefits trends
continued, they would exceed city revenue in 2010.
The mayor said the warning was ignored by the City Council and city managers. He
said the projected day of reckoning arrived three years early, accelerated in
part by the economic downturn.
"Municipalities that are looking at us ought to say to themselves, 'We need to
start now finding a way to fix it, finding a way to negotiate with our employee
unions,' and let them know we are headed on a collision path -- and clear
evidence of it is Vallejo," Davis said.
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Monday, June 9, 2008
Vallejo blames bankruptcy on contracts with unions
State and local retirees haven't had an adjustment to the
cost-of-living formula in their pensions since 1997. They deserve a reasonable
increase, but the state won't provide the money and municipalities can't afford
it. The Legislature was wrong to resort to an accounting ploy that would burden
a future generation of taxpayers....
The House-Senate conference committee ought to remove these amendments from the
budget. If they remain, Governor Patrick should use his line-item veto to excise
them. The leaders of Massachusetts shouldn't fob off to the future, or to local
officials, a burden they couldn't bear themselves.
A Boston Globe editorial
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Mortgaging the future
Hard to believe Beacon Hill is contemplating legislation
granting new cost-of-living increases for state and municipal pensioners.
Cities and towns are sinking under the weight of their obligations to retirees.
If you want to learn more about the extent of the problem go to
www.PensionTsunami.com which seeks to document the huge liability facing
governmental entities nationwide. Chip Ford of Citizens for Limited
Taxation calls it "the ticking time bomb" of state and local government in a
release issued this week.
The Salem News
Friday, May 30, 2008
With friends like these ...
If state lawmakers running for re-election want to just start
handing out cash to thousands of public retirees, they should darn well have the
decency to come up with a responsible way to pay for it....
House lawmakers tucked a provision into their budget that delays full funding of
the state pension system from 2023 to 2026. The Senate promptly got on board.
But Treasurer Tim Cahill, a lonely voice of reason on this issue, says failing
to pay for the increase up front could wreak havoc on the state’s bond rating.
Meanwhile, a provision in the Senate budget puts pressure on cities and towns to
OK the same increase for their retirees, forcing local officials to choose
between paying for it up front (the Boston Municipal Research Bureau estimates
that would cost Hub taxpayers another $7 million to $10 million a year) or
delaying full funding of their pension systems.
Advocates argue the beauty of all this is that it won’t add a thing to next
year’s bottom line. As they work to finalize a budget, lawmakers ought to reject
such fiscally irresponsible logic.
A Boston Herald editorial
Friday, May 30, 2008
Find another way to pay for COLA
Both the House and Senate seem ready to increase the base
salary used for pension calculations from $12,000 to $16,000. That will result
in a $120 annual increase for each of the more than 100,000 former state workers
and teachers in the public pension system. An additional 86,000 municipal
employees could receive a similar benefit under a Senate amendment....
Both the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the independent Pioneer
Institute have urged that the Legislature’s pension measure be subjected to
additional cost analysis before the Legislature acts. We concur. Taking care of
public retirees is a worthy goal, but it must not be done in a manner that
breaks the backs of working men and women — today or years from now.
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Get the facts
Don’t backslide on state pension funding
Pension outrage of the week: Daniel Madden was the fire chief
in the town of Weymouth before he took a leave to run for mayor eight years ago.
After opting not to seek re-election last fall, Madden exercised his right to
return to his old job — for two days.
The temporary return boosted his pension from the $49,000 a year he would have
received if he'd retired as mayor, to $79,000. So Madden, 53, will receive an
extra $30,000 a year for the rest of his life. Not bad for two days' "work."
The action drew protests from the state, but was reaffirmed last week by a 4-0
vote of the city's retirement board.
The Salem News
Friday, June 6, 2008
Excerpt from weekly column
By Nelson Benton, Editor
Describing impending teacher layoffs and burdensome mandates,
local officials pleaded with the Patrick administration Tuesday to stave off
legislative efforts to increase cost-of-living increases they say would cost
municipalities billions....
[Franklin Town Manager Jeff Nutting] called the pension system “a mishmash of
things put together over the last 40 or 50 years” and recommended that lawmakers
undertake a comprehensive study of the entire system, COLA increases included.
State House News Service
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
State Capitol Briefs
Municipal leaders slam proposed COLA increase
“The deficit is real and there will be no rabbit [out of a
hat] this time,” said Selectmen’s Chairman Todd Johnson several days before the
vote. “I hope people get the sense of urgency.”
However, [Tewksbury Selectmen Anne Marie Stronach] said she thinks the majority
of voters opposing the override shows a lack of trust in local, state and
federal government.
“We need to continue to build trust in the community,” said Stronach. “I just
think they thought they weren’t going to get anything for the override. They
don’t want it to go to salaries, they don’t want it to go to pensions. Overall,
they don’t trust us with the money, statewide and federally.”
While last week gave officials some hope with the town’s Public Employee
Commission returning with a positive vote on their concession package only two
weeks after they initially rejected the health increase, Stronach said she feels
the vote came “too little too late.” Voters also effectively rejected employee
concessions with a negative override vote.
The Tewksbury Advocate
Monday, June 9, 2008
Voters say no to override
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
“I just think they thought they weren’t going
to get anything for the override. They don’t want it to go to
salaries, they don’t want it to go to pensions. Overall, they don’t
trust us with the money, statewide and federally.”
Selectmen Anne Marie Stronach got it, after
Tewksbury's override went down in flames last Saturday. The 3,742
who voted against and defeated the town's proposed property tax increase
got it. The voters got it in Beverly, Belmont, Franklin, Upton and
Winthrop over the past week too -- even voters in Newton of all places
got it and recently rejected its proposed Proposition 2½
override.
Newspapers around the state have got it, recognize
that public employee benefits -- high salaries, fat pensions, early
retirement, escalating health insurance for life -- are bankrupting
government at all levels and the taxpayers who fund it, all of it. They too see a situation that is
worsening by the day with each new "negotiated" contract.
Editorial boards have got it -- that adding to the
multi-billion dollar underfunded public employee benefits liability will
only bring on the looming crisis quicker, for both retirees and
taxpayers.
Municipal officials have got it at last, that public
employee benefits (which they've negotiated) are squeezing out every
other public spending need.
Only "The Best Legislature Money Can Buy" still
hasn't gotten it. It is still plunging ahead promising the
impossible to its core constituency, public employee unions; setting up
taxpayers for the inevitable huge tax increase ahead to fund the favors
it intends to bestow.
The mayor of Vallejo, California -- only the first
municipality in the nation to declare bankruptcy due to the cost of
public employee benefits -- has warned: "Municipalities that are
looking at us ought to say to themselves, 'We need to start now finding
a way to fix it, finding a way to negotiate with our employee unions,'
and let them know we are headed on a collision path -- and clear
evidence of it is Vallejo." Mayor Davis got it, the hard way.
Everyone has finally
got or is getting it. Everyone but most of our state
legislators. What does the Massachusetts Legislature not get?
As
"The Ticking
Time Bomb" counts down to doomsday, "The Great and General Court"
winds its spring tighter.
 |
|
Chip Ford |
The Salem News
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
A Salem News editorial
Can't spend what you don't have; or can you?
Giving retired state and municipal workers an additional $120 a year to
keep up with inflation might seem like no big deal — except that those
who will be forced to foot the bill can't afford it.
Yet legislators appear poised to impose yet another expensive mandate on
government in the form of cost-of-living adjustments for present and
future retirees, which all told could increase the cost of retirement
benefits by $20 billion over the next 20 years. That's the same amount a
recent study said the state must spend on essential highway and bridge
repairs over the next two decades — and for which there is also no
money.
Pension obligations recently prompted one California city to declare
bankruptcy and many others are on the brink. Yet that seems to matter
little to Bay State legislators anxious to make points with public
employees and the unions that represent them.
"This benefit increase has not been funded for either active employees
or retirees, so the only way to fund it, would be to have current or
future taxpayers pay the bill," according the Geoffrey Beckwith,
executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
Writing in the most recent issue of the MMA newsletter, The Beacon,
Beckwith states: "This proposal is not a local option. It is not free.
It is a huge unfunded mandate, at a time when cities and towns are
already facing extreme fiscal duress and cannot absorb new costs, let
alone $2 billion."
What it would likely mean, if passed, would be higher taxes or, for the
many communities already taxing at the maximum level allowed by
Proposition 2½, further reductions in essential services like education
and public safety.
This is an irresponsible piece of legislation that should be scrapped.
The San Diego Union-Tribune
Monday, June 9, 2008
Vallejo blames bankruptcy on contracts with unions
By Ed Mendel
VALLEJO -- Across the bay from San Francisco, this old waterfront city
with 120,000 residents shares some history with San Diego.
It was a Navy town when an aide to Mayor Osby Davis recalls being warned
as a young girl: Don't go south of Georgia Street, where there are bars,
gambling and other dens of iniquity.
But the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, founded in 1854 and builder of 500
ships, including half a dozen nuclear submarines, was shut down in 1996
during a round of military base closures.
Now the city of Vallejo, hit by the slumping housing market and the
economic slowdown, says it is in deep financial trouble. It's blaming
contracts with public employee unions, much like the city of San Diego.
But unlike San Diego, the Vallejo City Council voted unanimously to
declare bankruptcy and ask a federal court to break its union contracts
-- a move that experts say could set a precedent.
An attorney in Santa Monica who worked on a previous government
bankruptcy that also drew national media attention, that of Orange
County, said cities and unions will watch the Vallejo case.
"Probably many cities and municipal entities have problems similar to
Vallejo, if not to the same magnitude, at least of the same kind," said
Paul Glassman, who represented cities in the 1994 Orange County case
resulting from faulty investments.
Vallejo said in a filing with a federal bankruptcy court last month that
it has been running a small general deficit for three years, which is
expected to balloon to $17 million in the fiscal year beginning July 1.
The big problem is said to be contracts with police, firefighters and
other unions. General fund revenue is expected to be $77.9 million, less
than the $79.4 million needed for labor contracts, not to mention other
costs.
The city said it has cut 87 full-time employees, leaving a work force of
about 600. Funding has been reduced for street maintenance, parks, the
library, a senior center and other services and programs.
Additional cuts would threaten "the city's ability to provide even
minimal levels of service to its residents and, at some point, may
create significant health and safety risks," the city said in court
filings.
The city told the court that unions only agreed to enough pay cuts to
get the city through this month. Then a 45-day mediation failed. Now the
city says it cannot rebalance the general fund "without restructuring
its labor costs."
Davis, sitting at a desk in front of a large city seal showing a boat
and dock with the words "incorporated A.D. 1868," said it's a "sad day"
when a city cannot meet its promises and commitments.
Unfortunately, the mayor said, the bankruptcy is necessary because there
is "absolutely no other way to pay our bills" in the new fiscal year
without getting relief from the union contracts.
Is Vallejo, as some observers are saying, a test case for other local
governments that might opt for bankruptcy to get relief from union
contracts, including costly pensions and retiree health benefits?
Davis said Vallejo's situation should be cautionary in another way. He
said a citizens committee reported in 1993 that if employee-benefits
trends continued, they would exceed city revenue in 2010.
The mayor said the warning was ignored by the City Council and city
managers. He said the projected day of reckoning arrived three years
early, accelerated in part by the economic downturn.
"Municipalities that are looking at us ought to say to themselves, 'We
need to start now finding a way to fix it, finding a way to negotiate
with our employee unions,' and let them know we are headed on a
collision path -- and clear evidence of it is Vallejo," Davis said.
A spokesman for the unions, Mat Mustard, a Vallejo police detective,
said the financial problems are the result of "mismanagement" by city
officials, not union demands.
Mustard said the city has for several years been shifting money from the
general fund to a number of restricted special funds, such as
transportation and redevelopment, to make its budget look unbalanced.
"They are not bankrupt," Mustard said. "They are not insolvent. The city
has in excess of 150 different funds."
The average police officer will receive a base salary of $121,518 under
the current contract, with pension, health coverage and other benefits
pushing the total cost to $191,060, said a staff report to the City
Council on May 6.
The average firefighter will receive an annual salary, excluding
overtime, of $130,112, costing $193,174 with benefits. Ranking officers
get much higher pay -- for example, a police captain earns a salary of
$231,120, and the total with benefits is $347,726.
Mustard said the salary report given to the City Council is overstated.
He said his paycheck and information from colleagues tells him the
average police salary is "somewhere in the neighborhood of $90,000."
Public employee unions, with their political war chests, can contribute
to the campaigns of elected officials in local government and school
districts, presumably backing those who will agree to lucrative union
contracts.
Davis said four of the seven members of the Vallejo City Council are
said to have been elected with strong union support. He said he is not
one of them.
"People expect that they will then sell their soul to the public safety
unions and the public employee unions," Davis said. "I have to say their
vote (for bankruptcy) indicated they were willing to be fair and open .
. . and make the decision they felt was in the best interest of the
majority of this community."
The unions and others who oppose the bankruptcy have until June 27 to
file with the federal court.
Glassman, the bankruptcy attorney, said he thinks it's more difficult
for a municipality than a corporation to persuade a court to accept a
bankruptcy filing.
But once it is in bankruptcy, he said, the law is more favorable to a
municipality than to a corporation. Glassman said bankrupt corporations
such as airlines have obtained contract relief usually through
negotiations.
"You can't even begin to assess this until after the bankruptcy filing
has been accepted," said Dave Hitchcock of Standard & Poor's, a Wall
Street credit-rating agency.
Hitchcock said city financial crises usually involve defaulting on debt.
San Diego's problem was an unfunded future pension liability, $1.37
billion, rather than an inability to pay current debts.
"We are still working through this ourselves, because municipal
bankruptcies are so rare," he said.
Hitchcock said a bankruptcy brings "negative consequences," such as an
inability to sell bonds. He doubts that Vallejo would be able to walk
away from its debt without paying a price.
The Boston Globe
Thursday, May 29, 2008
A Boston Globe editorial
Mortgaging the future
State and local retirees haven't had an adjustment to the cost-of-living
formula in their pensions since 1997. They deserve a reasonable
increase, but the state won't provide the money and municipalities can't
afford it. The Legislature was wrong to resort to an accounting ploy
that would burden a future generation of taxpayers.
The raise would amount to an extra $120 annually on top of the $360
raises that are routinely given each year. The new increase for state
retirees and teachers would cost $110 million annually. Rather than
appropriate the money, the House (with Senate concurrence) proposes to
stretch out the time needed to fully fund the state pension plan by
three years, to 2026. That is fiscally irresponsible, as state Treasurer
Tim Cahill has rightly noted. To delay would increase the cost of paying
off the pension liability and raise eyebrows at bond-rating agencies,
which determine how much the state pays to borrow money. Cahill favors a
raise using existing revenues.
Last week, the Senate performed its own bit of pension mischief. It
approved a budget rider that would encourage cities and towns to provide
cost-of-living increases for their own retirees. Local pension boards
would have to approve them, as would another local governing authority.
Senator Marian Walsh of West Roxbury says she merely wanted to open a
conversation on the issue, but, without further state aid, any
discussion will quickly turn contentious. Unless local officials want to
offend their retirees and their current workforce (the retirees of the
future), cities and towns would have to find the money by stretching out
their own pension funding, cutting services, or seeking a property tax
increase.
If the Legislature wants to give local retirees a raise, it should
provide the money directly. But the state can't afford that. There isn't
even room in the budget for the extra $110 million for state retirees.
The decision to fully fund the state and local pension systems was made
in 1988, one of the most fiscally responsible actions the Legislature
has ever taken. There may be reasons to adjust the completion date
depending on the returns on pension-fund investments, but the
Legislature needs to resist delaying the date just because it has found
immediate uses for the money. Other states, notably New Jersey, have
raided their pension funds with dire results.
The House-Senate conference committee ought to remove these amendments
from the budget. If they remain, Governor Patrick should use his
line-item veto to excise them. The leaders of Massachusetts shouldn't
fob off to the future, or to local officials, a burden they couldn't
bear themselves.
The Salem News
Friday, May 30, 2008
With friends like these ...
By Nelson Benton, Editor
[Excerpt]
Hard to believe Beacon Hill is contemplating legislation granting new
cost-of-living increases for state and municipal pensioners.
Cities and towns are sinking under the weight of their obligations to
retirees. If you want to learn more about the extent of the problem go
to www.PensionTsunami.com which seeks to document the huge liability
facing governmental entities nationwide. Chip Ford of Citizens for
Limited Taxation calls it "the ticking time bomb" of state and local
government in a release issued this week.
Yet both the House and Senate versions of the FY 2009 budget, currently
in conference committee, include provisions that could add billions to
the amount due retirees.
The Senate version would leave it to local retirement boards to adopt
the higher payment rate; but since most of these boards are dominated by
current or former employees, you can guess how those votes will go.
Legislators pay plenty of lip service to the plight of cities and towns,
yet here they go again making it more difficult for mayors and selectmen
to manage.
Nelson Benton's political column appears every Friday.
The Boston Herald
Friday, May 30, 2008
A Boston Herald editorial
Find another way to pay for COLA
If state lawmakers running for re-election want to just start handing
out cash to thousands of public retirees, they should darn well have the
decency to come up with a responsible way to pay for it.
As it is, the folks on Beacon Hill appear to be channeling their inner
Scarlett O’Haras - they’ll worry about paying for the pension increases
tomorrow (and yes, for many tomorrows to come).
Currently, annual cost of living adjustments for retired public
employees are calculated on a base of $12,000 a year, so a 3 percent
adjustment means a $360 bump. But public employee unions and retiree
advocates have now managed to convince sympathetic lawmakers that the
formula cap should be increased to $16,000 a year - a 33 percent hike -
giving the average retiree another $120.
It’s not exactly an easy argument - that pensioners, who retire on an
average of $22,000 a year, don’t deserve another 10 bucks a month to
cope with the rising cost of living in this state.
The trouble is, there’s nothing left in the cash drawer to pay for it!
And the scheme lawmakers have cooked up could cost taxpayers billions
over the long term.
House lawmakers tucked a provision into their budget that delays full
funding of the state pension system from 2023 to 2026. The Senate
promptly got on board. But Treasurer Tim Cahill, a lonely voice of
reason on this issue, says failing to pay for the increase up front
could wreak havoc on the state’s bond rating.
Meanwhile, a provision in the Senate budget puts pressure on cities and
towns to OK the same increase for their retirees, forcing local
officials to choose between paying for it up front (the Boston Municipal
Research Bureau estimates that would cost Hub taxpayers another $7
million to $10 million a year) or delaying full funding of their pension
systems.
Advocates argue the beauty of all this is that it won’t add a thing to
next year’s bottom line. As they work to finalize a budget, lawmakers
ought to reject such fiscally irresponsible logic.
The Telegram & Gazette
Sunday, June 1, 2008
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Get the facts
Don’t backslide on state pension funding
Before acting on a plan to boost the pensions of state retirees, the
Legislature needs to get a detailed cost analysis of the impact the
boost will have on pension reserves. The state has made laudable
progress toward fully funding the system — passing the 85 percent mark
in January last year — and should not begin backsliding on that
commitment now.
Both the House and Senate seem ready to increase the base salary used
for pension calculations from $12,000 to $16,000. That will result in a
$120 annual increase for each of the more than 100,000 former state
workers and teachers in the public pension system. An additional 86,000
municipal employees could receive a similar benefit under a Senate
amendment.
We don’t begrudge state and municipal retirees modest increases in their
pensions to keep pace with inflation — if done in a fiscally responsible
way.
Instead of funding the increase, however, the Legislature envisions
simply extending the deadline for fully funding the state pension fund
by three years, from 2023 to 2026.
That approach is sure to be needlessly expensive over time.
State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill has urged the Legislature to be
upfront about the increase, recommending lawmakers include a $110
million appropriation in the state budget during each of the next three
fiscal years to cover the increase.
He’s right. The immediate, but manageable impact on state finances in
the short term would be far outweighed by the benefits to taxpayers and
to the pension system over time.
Although buying time avoids an immediate budgetary hit, it could mean
billions of dollars more in financial obligations later, in direct
payments and the added interest costs on borrowing undertaken by a state
with weakened credit.
The consequences of carrying large unfunded pension liabilities can be
devastating, as past disasters in the private sector have shown.
Taxpayers nationwide ultimately were called upon to bail out large
employers in the airline and steel industries who failed to put aside
sufficient funds to cover payments to retirees and defaulted on their
pension obligations.
Both the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the independent Pioneer
Institute have urged that the Legislature’s pension measure be subjected
to additional cost analysis before the Legislature acts. We concur.
Taking care of public retirees is a worthy goal, but it must not be done
in a manner that breaks the backs of working men and women — today or
years from now.
State House News Service
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
State Capitol Briefs [Excerpt]
Municipal leaders slam proposed COLA increase
Describing impending teacher layoffs and burdensome mandates, local
officials pleaded with the Patrick administration Tuesday to stave off
legislative efforts to increase cost-of-living increases they say would
cost municipalities billions.
About 250,000 retirees would see their pensions increased an average
$120 per year, according to union estimates, should the final fiscal
2009 budget include the increase.
“To add this burden to us is just not fair at this point,” said Franklin
Town Manager Jeff Nutting. “If more revenues were available, maybe we
could consider it. We’ve proposed to lay off over 40 teachers. It’s just
not a good time to be looking for benefit increases.”
Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone agreed, blasting the proposal for
another unfunded mandate. “It’s these types of mandates we’ve been
frustrated with,” he said calling it “another undue mandate and strain
on our ability to offer services.”
Nutting called the pension system “a mishmash of things put together
over the last 40 or 50 years” and recommended that lawmakers undertake a
comprehensive study of the entire system, COLA increases included.
“Taking a look at the pension system on a piecemeal basis as a reaction
to the budget process makes it harder to look at those other issues,”
said Geoff Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal
Association.
The Tewksbury Advocate
Monday, June 9, 2008
Voters say no to override
By Chloe Gotsis
Tewksbury - Despite pleas from town officials, Tewksbury voters
effectively killed the phased-in three-year $5.35 million Proposition 2½
override Saturday.
While steamy weather did not keep 31 percent of the town’s 19,245
registered voters away from Tewksbury’s eight precincts on Saturday, the
measure lost by 1,550 votes with 2,187 votes in support of the override
and 3,742 votes against it.
“I think it says that people are nervous about the economy, which you
can’t blame them,” said Selectmen Anne Marie Stronach, who worked hard
to send a strong message to voters about the severity of the town’s
budget crisis and their urgent need for revenue from an override.
“Unemployment is at record high and every time you drive past a gas
station it goes forward. Times aren’t good.”
The override was one of the last chances the town had at saving itself
from the looming $6 million deficit including preserving essential
services such as allowing Town Hall to remain open, preserving overtime
and staffing development in both the police and fire departments. With
the additional revenue gained from the override, the South Fire Station
would only have closed during July and August instead of seven months
out of the year as originally proposed.
While Town Manager David Cressman said the outcome of Saturday’s vote
was “a bit disappointing,” he said residents were given the opportunity
to vote and they voted how they saw fit and the town will now carry out
their decision.
Stronach said the large voter turnout, which falls higher than the
town’s last three elections, is testament to the long hours she and her
colleagues devoted to assuring residents the importance and urgency of
their vote on Saturday.
“I feel like we did our job and we gave people the tools to make their
decisions,” said Stronach. “It’s not my job to tell people how to vote.
I can’t be disappointed with 31 percent. That’s a good turnout for us.”
Over the past month, town officials like Stronach did their best to
ensure they had the trust of the residents including signing and
creating a memorandum of understanding, signed by the town manager and
several department heads along with the finance director, town assessor
and four of the five selectmen, and guaranteeing to voters the override
would be $1.765 million over two years and the balance of the $5.35
million in the third year. With the failure of their encouragement and
projections of a bleak future, officials are left wondering if residents
still do not believe the severity of the town’s budget crisis.
“The deficit is real and there will be no rabbit [out of a hat] this
time,” said Selectmen’s Chairman Todd Johnson several days before the
vote. “I hope people get the sense of urgency.”
However, Stronach said she thinks the majority of voters opposing the
override shows a lack of trust in local, state and federal government.
“We need to continue to build trust in the community,” said Stronach. “I
just think they thought they weren’t going to get anything for the
override. They don’t want it to go to salaries, they don’t want it to go
to pensions. Overall, they don’t trust us with the money, statewide and
federally.”
While last week gave officials some hope with the town’s Public Employee
Commission returning with a positive vote on their concession package
only two weeks after they initially rejected the health increase,
Stronach said she feels the vote came “too little too late.” Voters also
effectively rejected employee concessions with a negative override vote.
A negative override vote now leaves the School Department staring at
$3.8 million in cuts once again and a severe reduction of 32 teaching
positions that cannot be absorbed through attrition.
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