Staff writer Brian Messenger is punching below the belt.
His front-page article in today's Andover Townsman (click here) paints a picture of our Town Manager as the budget-slashing Grinch in this year's budget process, but it's just not so.
At a Tri-Board meeting on 3 Dec 07, the Board of Selectmen, School Committe, and Finance Committee jointly developed and approved a plan for the budget formation process, including very specific guidance on how the available revenue was to be partioned across Town and School Departments. While the budget document is titled as the "Town Manager's Recommended Budget", the top-line allocation to each department was in fact directed by the Tri-Board policy.
The Manager and his Department Heads developed town-side budgets in compliance with the Tri-Board policy (based on available revenues), and was required by statute to call it his "recommended" budget. The School Department 'preliminary' budget was released on 18 January, and includes no acknowledgement of the Tri-Board policy and budget allocation, and indeeds exceeds the targeted budget by roughly $2.9 Million. With great reluctance, the School Department did present on Monday the impacts of complying with the budget allocations defined at the 3 Dec Tri-Board meeting.
The sparring over the allocation of available FY09 revenue dollars may just be starting, but School Committee member Tony James seems to have taken the gloves off already. After listening to the Town and School presentations, Mr. James summarized by claiming that the impact of the recommend allocation on Town Departments was "nothing", but that there was a "hugely significant and detrimental impact" on the School Department. (I'll comment more on that topic another day...)
The Town and School department budgets are being reviewed in detail over the coming weeks; schedules can be found (here) and (here). The three financial planning sub-committee will meet next on 14 Feb (7:30 am), where the topic of town/school allocation will mostly likely be a central topic.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
Is there is a proposal to collect extra tax money to help the schools out? What is a concerned parent of an Andover student to do to help?
Yes, there are proposals (articles) included in the Warrant for the Annual Town Meeting (starts April 30) that would ask voters if they would allow additional taxes to be collected.
The Massachusetts law referred to as "Proposition 2 1/2" limits how much the Town Meeting voters can raise taxes each year, and these so-called "Proposition 2 1/2 override" articles require not only approval at Town Meeting, but ratification at a subsequent special election. Andover has tried to pass such override atricles in the past, and both attempts were defeated by a wide margin at the special election.
If you want to help advocate to the Town voters that such an override should be passed, I expect there will be a large number of like-minded parents campaigning along with you. You can probably find several of them at the School Committee meeting tomorrow night (12 Feb), or through your school's PAC.
What about adjusting the allocation of the town budget to provide more dollars for the schools? Seems to me that Andover is unwilling to look at prioritzing overall town spending to reflect changing needs and requirements in the school department?
Some members of the School Committee have raised the suggestion of shifting more town spending to the schools, and this idea is being actively discussed by the financial planning subcommittees.
Note that this shift has indeed been taking place each year, as the school adds more employees to their budget, while the town maintains level staffing. Since FY03, almost 100 full-time equivalent positions have been added to the school budget, while zero have been added to the town-side departments.
My understanding is that the vast majority of these school staffing increases are related to efforts to save the town money by bringing Special Education Out-of-District students back into the district. The remaining positions are AHS additions to meet the state law of 990 hours of learning and some rebuilding from regular education cuts in previous years.
All this number analysis aside however, the loss of programs in the schools is very real to students where town services have remain unchanged. Perhaps the lack of additions (or cuts) in the municipal staff speaks to the excesses that have existed there over the years and is not necessarily a statement on fiscal responsibility today.
While your hypothesis is in general a possibility, I believe that it is not the case in Andover today.
In FY2004, the financial realities of the town budget resulted in the school department reducing total FTE possions by 46, and the town-side departments by almost 13. In both cases, the residents clearly perceived loss of some services in conjunction with these staffing reductions.
The town-side departments have replaced approximately 1 FTE since these FY04 reductions, and have held expense budgets to quite small increases (and currently planning on a decrease in expense dollars for most departments in FY09). While there are certainly areas where town-side departments are criticized for staffing or expenses that could be further reduced, I would contend that after 4 years of level staffing and constrained expenses growth, it would be inappropriate to describe any of these departments as examples of "excess".
But that is just my personal opinion - the public budget review process is intended to let all interested residents get as detailed a view into the department operations as they are willing to absorb. I would personally welcome all suggestions for where to find wyas to deliver town services more efficiently, or to identify existing services that most town residents would be content to do away with.
It is very simple. We need more money which the override allows. We have the capacity tok do it and maintain and improve the servies we need and desire. An ocerride would cost the average citizen about $1.00 per day. You keep shifting to making cuts when we don't have to. Now is the time to say we need more money. It is not a sin it is adjusting to reality. This town has avoided an override for many years which has not shown great results as far as I can see. Just deeper divisions in the community.
It is that simply if town leadership were willing to make the hard decision and start leading the community toward the idea that more tax dollars are necessary… but they will not. Instead they want to keep making cuts until there is nothing left of this town they are all fighting to protect.
I don't consider anything about an override in Andover being 'simple'. If everyone in town had the same values, the same vision of the future, and the same priorities, then reaching agreement on budget issues might be easier than it is today.
The last time that Andover attempted an override, roughly 2/3 of the voting population rejected the idea. I would expect many of those same people to argue that the situation is little different today then it was in 2003 (except then the town was asking for $1.3M and now it will need at least 2-3 times that amount just to balance the budget this year).
To say that town leaders 'want to keep making cuts' is a gross misrepresentation of reality. First, it should be noted that Andover bdugets, for all departments - and especially the school department - have been consistently increasing in recent years. Too often the word "cut" is applied to a department not getting all of the INCREASE in budget that is requested. Note that most town-side departments are currently being constrained to get by with FY09 expense (non-salary) budgets were are actually fewer absolute dollars than FY08; those are cuts, not reductions in requested increases.
Secondly, I think it's important to clearly recognize that town leaders have no abilty to "impose" an override. Indeed, and override is a choice put to the voters, for them to decide how much they are willing to pay in exchange for services provided by the town departments. Leaders have an obligation to to explain clearly what the choices that voters must make, but it is fundamentally the voters that must utlimately make these hard choices. Moreover, town leaders have a clear obligation to clearly identify the responsible, sustainable department budgets that will be available in the event that voters reject an override request. As a voterm I would be insulted if town leaders were to request an override without having exhausted themselves defining the most responsible and effective alternatives.
While town leaders certainly have some degree of influence on the opinion of the voting population, it is perhaps easy to overestimate their ability to "sell" an idea against significant opposition.
I encourage those people who aim criticism at Andover leaders for "not pushing hard enough" to instead direct their energies and advocacy at the people who can really make a difference: their friends, neighbors and fellow residents who will ultimately vote on override questions. These are the people who need to be convinced that more is better.
The town leaders do have influence. At this point you are communicating that we don't need an override by your actions, ie you are still looking for ways to decrease/cut , suggesting that we can't afford to fund what we need. Yes,we need to educate the community and yes we all do what we can in the way democracy works. But you know you have influence and I believe the finance committee was appointed by someone with one particular view on what is important in town and you all reflect that. Lets be real now.
I disagree that the cuts are not real cuts. We may be spending more dollars each year but we are getting less and less for those dollars every year.
What used to buy 5 teachers, buys only 3 teachers now because of contracts and healthcare, etc. On top of that each year less of every tax dollar can be spent on the average citizen because state and federal mandates, that come to the town unfunded, dictate how a larger and larger chunk of dollars will be spent.
The residents of this town are seeing and feeling this budget situation as cuts regardless of how many dollars you see on the balance sheet.
The residents of this town (of this country for that matter) bear a responsibility to take care of our children and our seniors. Just because you might not have children in public school, send your children to private school or do not have a need to draw on senior services, it should not be reason to skirt the resposibility.
The town managers should allocate the required funds to those areas, especially education, and let the town vote on a proposition 2 1/2 override for other town needs.
Let's be realistic and level our taxes to support the services we need.
At the end of the last tri-board meeting a comment was made (I am not sure if it was person on the Finance committee or a Selectman), in which the phrase was used "stick it to the town" in reference to an override. This was clearly a negative point of view with respect to an override. I think we should recognize that the 71.9 percent of the towns revenue is through property taxes, and with the onset of a recession the local receipts and new growth revenue will most likely decrease. Unless another source of sustainable revenue is found, nothing but an override will allow the town to maintain its current level of town services AND maintain the quality of education that our 6097 students in this town deserve. It is my opinion that the town has no other choice but to make an adjustment to its tax base through an override, because the State and Federal aid is insufficient to keep pace with the rising cost of health care, transportation, and operating costs (ie. heating/electricity). We are feeling the effects of out-of-control health care costs (which I believe are increasing at a rate of 12-15% which far exceeds the rate of inflation). Our angst should not be directed at the School department and its employees, but rather we need to redirect our energy towards substantive changes on the state and national level which will result in lower health care costs, and Federal funding (that was promised by Congress back in 1975 and is only 7.5% of the 40% promised) for Special Education. Until that time, we as a community are going to have reach an understanding that it is not an "US" versus "THEM" proposition. We are in this together, and we have to support our town employees (services and school).
Post a Comment