Norfolk In Brief

What An Override Won’t Do Two prominent areas of local services would not benefit from an operating budget override as it is currently constituted: the town’s Department of Public Works and King Philip regional schools.

The town’s public works director, Remo “Butch” Vito, ac­knowledged to the Advisory Board last month that the proposed $989,000 operating override of Proposition 2 1/2 wouldn’t do much for the Department of Public Works, which has seen de­creases in its budget in recent years. Vito told the Advisory Board on April 15 that he wishes he had more money to put toward the town’s roads.“If we do have an option to partake of the override, I think we’re looking at road maintenance money,” Vito said. King Philip officials say they’re getting squeezed even more than usual in this year’s budget negotiations, and they have warned about the possibility of large numbers of teacher layoffs for the coming school year.

If King Philip officials want more money for the regional school district’s budget, the first gambit is to try to increase the appropriation on Town Meeting floor in Norfolk next week.

If Norfolk increases its ante, then it just takes either Wren­tham or Plainville to match Norfolk’s amount, because according to the regional agreement if two towns agree on a budget for King Philip then the third town has to go along.

But to increase Norfolk’s contribution to King Philip without benefiting from an operating budget override would force King Philip supporters to suggest taking the money from elsewhere in the budget. In the past, that sort of tactic has led to accusations that King Philip supporters were trying to raid the local elemen­tary schools’ budget. On Town Meeting floor, any resident can suggest a change in the operating budget proposed by the town’s Advisory Board — as long as any proposed increase in a particular line item is accom­panied by a decrease somewhere else.

DPW: Town’s Infrastructure Crumbling

The town can’t keep scaling back what it pays to maintain its infrastructure without costly consequences, public works officials told the town’s Advisory Board recently. “We’re at a critical point right now,” said Remo “Butch” Vito, the town’s director of public works, during an appearance before the town’s Advisory Board last month. “As the infrastructure collapses, it’s just going to bring us more dollar costs in the future. … We’re not going to gain by letting this happen. It’s all going to come back to us,” Vito said. Bob McGhee, the superintendent of the Department of Public Works, said he sees troubling signs around town. “I’ve got to tell you, I’m actually out there on my hands and knees looking up these drains and culverts and headwalls. And they’re disappearing. And that’s the benefit of having a mainte­nance budget, so you don’t get them into a condition where they need to be rebuilt and the big money comes,” McGhee told the Advisory Board on April 15. Advisory Board member Kathy Elder asked McGhee if that means if the town gets another dose of flooding from heavy rains (as happened last month) if the results could be worse.

“Oh most definitely,” McGhee replied. “Most people just drive down the street and they see a pretty town. But what you have underneath in the infrastructure is like a rotting corpse, if you don’t take care of it,” McGhee said. “If you just go out and take a look at our guardrails. We haven’t replaced guardrails unless there’s a new project going on.”