Override Going To Polls

Norfolk voters can decide Tuesday, June 22 whether to approve a $1,067,157 operating budget override of Proposi­tion 2 ½ that would add about $284 in property taxes for a house assessed at $400,000. Selectmen set the date for a special election this week after voters at annual Town Meeting approved the override. The proposed override would add 71 cents per $1,000 assessed to property taxes. It would increase the town’s tax levy beyond the amount ordinarily al­lowed

by state law, which is 2.5 percent plus allowances for new growth.

Town and school officials say the over­ride would save a police officer’s job and possibly about four elementary teachers, among other things. A portion is also targeted for the King Philip regional schools, thanks to a last-minute deal among selectmen, the Advi­sory Board, and the King Philip School Committee not long before Town Meeting began this past Tuesday night. As usual, Town Meeting approved the operating budget this past Tuesday night exactly as the town’s Advisory Board pre­sented it. But supporters of the proposed budget first had to fight back an attempt to add $77,728 to the King Philip budget from Norfolk elementary schools.

Without an override, King Philip’s in­terim superintendent, Richard Robbat, said he expects to eliminate the equiva­lent

of 6.2 full-time teaching positions at the middle school (grades 7 and 8) and six full-time teaching positions at the high school (grades 9 through 12). Robbat predicted class sizes rising into the 30s, fewer course offerings for students, more study halls, and lowered graduation requirements. Jonathan Smith, a former selectman and recent unsuccessful candidate for moderator, proposed adding the money to King Philip’s budget on the floor of Town Meeting. “King Philip is in big, big trouble, and we’ve got to help them out,” Smith said. One resident pointed out that the money would be more likely to get to King Philip if it were in the town’s operating budget.

“Even if we vote for the override, it’s not a sure thing,” said town resident Marguerite Kevorkian-Birkner, referring to the Town Meeting override vote this week. “… So let’s take the sure thing.”

But the King Philip School Com­mittee didn’t support Smith’s proposal, preferring to stick with a last-minute deal with town of­ficials to try to cut King Philip in on the override.

Maureen Howard, chairman of the King Philip School Committee and a Norfolk resident, said King Philip is in “dire need” and thanked Smith for his sup­port, but she said the King Philip School Committee preferred to stick with the offer from Norfolk selectmen and the Advisory Board to take a piece of the override for the same amount.

The decision matters because a transfer from the el­ementary schools’ budget to King Philip’s budget would have guaranteed that King Philip got the money as long as either Wrentham or Plainville agreed to put up a pro­portional match. On the fundamental question of whether there should be an override for the coming fiscal year that starts July 1, Advisory Board member Marc Waldman argued that Norfolk residents should be prepared for serious changes in town services if they vote against an override and the so-called “balanced budget” (meaning no override) takes effect.

“We’re presenting a balanced budget because the law requires us. Is it a pretty budget? No. It’s a hideous budget, and everybody’s going to take the hits. But we’re offering an alternative, as well, and that is another shot with the override. And if you don’t like the override, then you go to the voting booth and you vote it down. But you have to realize that you’ve got to live with the consequences, And those consequences are reduced services, and drastically reduced services. And that’s what everybody needs to make their decision based on,” Waldman said.

Town Meeting eventually approved the override handily on a voice vote, but the override took several rhetorical attacks before the vote that could come up in the weeks leading up to the special election.

Andrea Langhauser, a member of the town’s Com­munity Preservation Committee, noted that the Advi­sory Board’s recommendation bundles many different expenditures into one package.

Langhauser didn’t point out particular examples, but among the items that would be funded by the over­ride is $36,000 for a personnel director at Town Hall and expenditures for the library and the Department of Public Works, among other things.

“So it looks on face value like you did a really good job of trying to make decisions for us. But this is Town Meeting, and every voter gets the chance to have a vote. So I’m going to actually have to vote against the over­ride, which kills me, because the KP school system re­ally does need the money. But it doesn’t look like ev­erything on the override bundle is essential services,” Langhauser said.

Town resident Ken Milne objected to $192,000 in a capital budget, which would be used for capital items in the coming fiscal year but could be used for anything in following years. He noted that town officials haven’t specified where they would seek to spend the capital money, and he argued that funds for a capital budget shouldn’t come from an operating budget override.

Smith noted that supporters of an override early in the process argued for keeping an override proposal less than $1 million, but the new figure is now more than $1 million.

“This is a fundamental change willy-nilly at the last minute. It is. And that’s something that we must con­sider, those of us that want an override to pass, we bet­ter think long and hard that that override be six digits instead of seven. The psychology really matters a lot,” Smith said.

Among override skeptics, town resident Bill Newhall argued that town employees shouldn’t expect a pay raise in such tough times, but both the no-override budget and the override budget assume salary increases. “I do ask why level funding isn’t level service. Where is it written that in the public sector you have to have a raise every year? In the private sector, you don’t get a raise if you aren’t more productive and if you don’t make more money. How do you justify a raise every year when things are tough for the private sector? The pri­vate sector supports the public. You can’t go to the well forever,” Wall said, to applause.

Town resident Patrick Touhey said he doesn’t see what he’s getting for steady increases in local property taxes.

“Since I moved here my taxes have gone up almost $3,000. That’s almost double what I paid when lived in Boston for 10 years. I don’t see my services increased,” Touhey said. Supporters of the override had answers to these points. Non-school town employees last year actually took a wage freeze, for instance, and Advisory Board chairman Arlie Sterling noted that salary negotiations between the town and its unions are sometimes contentious. The capital money would be put toward only some of the items the town desperately needs, Sterling said. Moreover, he argued that the permanent increase in revenue is exactly what the town needs.

“What the town needs is revenue. It needs it uncon­strained, so that it can use it any way possible,” Sterling said.

Selectman Jim Tomaszewski pointed out that Town Meeting approves all capital budget expenditures, so whatever items selectmen or the Advisory Board settle on would come back to Town Meeting for approval.

Jim Giebfried, a former selectman and head of the Norfolk Town Democratic Committee, said no one wants to raise taxes, but that the spending limit of Prop­osition 2 ½ makes it hard to avoid, because 2.5 percent plus allowances for new growth isn’t enough to keep up with the costs of the town’s needs.

“I don’t know what the number is that’s correct. But I know that if you don’t have an infrastructure, if you don’t have the services that you need, you don’t serve the citizens and you don’t serve the future of the town. The town is us. And it is us here, speaking for those that aren’t here, or those who can’t vote, such as our chil­dren.

… We want to leave something to those we are caring for now. … I feel that overrides more or less have to occur each year, because 2.5 percent is ludicrous,” Giebfried said.

If approved at the polls June 22, the override would amount to a permanent tax increase, since future in­creases in the town’s tax levy would be based on the in­creased figure that includes the override.

Most town officials support the override but many privately predict it will fail because of the tough econo­my and because voters already approved a $36.9 million debt exclusion in December to build a new elementary school that property owners will be paying for during the next 20 years. But if voters reject the override, town officials say they’ll see reductions in town services almost immedi­ately.