Override Crushed

Norfolk voters crushed a proposed $1,067,157 Proposition 2 ½ override this week, and now town residents can expect services cuts starting this week. The override failed 571 to 1,235 in the special town election this past Tues­day, which is greater than a two-to-one margin (31.6 percent for to 68.4 percent against).

At 29 percent, turnout was unusu­ally high for a special town election. The defeat was expected, since the override generated little enthusiasm in town suffering from the down economy. But the size of the defeat caught some observers off-guard. “I was surprised by the spread. And I think the spread was determined by the turnout,” said Selectman Rob Garrity, board chairman, in an interview this week.

At mid-morning on Tuesday, June 22, the town sent a reverse-911 call to Norfolk residents reminding them of the town election that day. Garrity sug­gested it may have spurred less commit­ted voters to come to the polls, most of whom probably voted no.

Garrity noted that the override drew perfunctory support from key town boards and that there was no campaign in favor of approving it. “I think a request to spend more money to be successful has to have strong support, and it just wasn’t there,” Garrity said.

Some critics of the selectmen’s ap­proach thought they should have pre­sented voters with a menu of options, instead of a winner-take-all smorgas­bord of funding. But Garrity said it’s not a good idea to pit town needs against each other, and he suggested the size of the rejec­tion

suggests the override might have failed even if town officials had targeted only popular spending priorities like the schools and left out less jazzy recipients like various Town Hall departments, the capital budget, and the snow-and-ice budget. “So I don’t think it’s a slam dunk that a school-only override would have passed, either,” Garrity said. One of the town’s 17 police officersstands to lose his job come Thursday, July 1.

All 13 Norfolk firefighters are expect­ed to keep their jobs, but there will be no money for training and less money available for overtime pay for off-duty firefighters called back to deal with emergencies.

The schools situation is murkier. The override included some $77,000 for the King Philip regional school sys­tem,

which serves grades 7 through 12 for Norfolk, Wrentham, and Plainville. KP will still get that money from Nor­folk

because Wrentham and Plainville approved commensurate amounts, forcing Norfolk to keep pace. But now Norfolk town officials will have to figure out where to get that money. (About $40,000 to $50,000 could come from a new local-option 0.7 per­cent meals tax on Norfolk restaurants, which is scheduled to take effect Thurs­day, July 1. Selectmen haven’t yet said how they plan to ask Town Meeting to spend that money.)

Shawn Dooley, chairman of the Nor­folk School Committee, which oversees the town’s elementary schools, said the School Committee will have to go with a package of fee increases and services cuts.

The School Committee had been try­ing to get the teachers to accept a pay cut, perhaps from two unpaid furlough days or some other means, but teachers haven’t accepted the offer, Dooley said.

“Unfortunately the school commit­tee was unable to come to any resolution with the Norfolk teachers union as far as any wage concessions are concerned so now we will have to make the tough decisions. We had been making contin­gency

plans in case the override failed, and working with the teachers union had been a major component of our so­lution. Unfortunately this did not hap­pen but we are confident we will be able to make everything work. We are work­ing diligently to come up with alterna­tive solutions, but unfortunately some additional resources must be cut. Our primary concern is the education of the children so we are attempting to be as creative as we can while minimizing any educational impact. The budget shortfall is $800,000 and the override was only going to be a stop gap of $300,000. We will be able to make it work and chal­lenge parents and residents to come for­ward and help,” Dooley said in an email message.

The Norfolk elementary teachers contract calls for teachers to receive a 2.75 percent cost-of-living pay raise plus raises for years of service and edu­cational

attainment. This coming fiscal year is the last in the three-year deal, which is up for negotiation this fall.

Norfolk Public Library will lose sev­en hours a week starting Thursday, July 1.

The library will now be open 41 hours a week, which is just one hour more than the amount needed to main­tain state certification, which makes the library eligible for state funding.