The leaders of small towns like Hawley and Charlemont must feel like gnats when they ask for fiscal fairness from their state government.
Most often, it seems, state officials, with the exception of our own legislative delegation, just don’t get it. In their view, “small towns” are metro Boston bedroom communities like Newton with 85,000 residents and, “really little towns” are like, well, Littleton, with 9,000, which would be the second largest town in Franklin County.
No wonder leaders of a state that the U.S. Census considers the fifth most urbanized in the country can’t seem to undertand places like Hawley with its 340 residents, let alone comprehend their serious fiscal problems.
So, many of those gnats are trying to organize a swarm hoping to get Boston’s attention in a meaningful way.
About 35 small western Mass. towns, including Charlemont and Hawley, convened a Small Town Summit recently to discuss how to get a fairer deal from Boston over state aid for schools and loss of property tax revenue to tax-free state-owned land like parks and forests.
Take Hawley for example. About 40 percent of the town is state-owned, which makes it more difficult for its taxpayers to cover their municipal obligations every time the state expands its holdings. Hawley has proposed legislation requiring the state to get town meeting approval for land purchases in towns where the state already owns 30 percent of the land. The town hasn’t heard back from state officials on that one yet.
Meanwhile, school leaders, led by Mohawk Trail Regional School Superintendent Michael Buoniconti, would like to see state aid boosted for hilltowns burdened disproportionately by education costs. The state aid formula, intended to level the local costs of public schools, needs to be adjusted to take into account a tiny town’s ability to pay vis-a-vis its urban counterparts.
We think that both these proposals have great merit and should be considered seriously by the Legislature and unelected officials in the executive branch, most of who live in the urban areas but get to enjoy the parks and forests of western Mass. at little expense. The cost is paid disproportionately by taxpayers in places like Hawley and Charlemont.
In fairness, it should be noted that in recent years, through no small effort by local legislators like Senate President Stanley Rosenberg of Amherst and state Rep. Stephen Kulik of Worthingon, the state’s program of payments in lieu of taxes for things like state forests has grown, from about 25 percent of full taxes in 2012 to about 57 percent now. But these towns and their people are hurting still and deserve more relief. We hope that Rosenberg, from his leadership seat, and Kulik, who sits on the Legislature’s budget-writing committee, can help some more.
Fiscal concerns that seem specific to truly small towns have been too long overlooked.
Maybe the small town leaders should take their summit on the road, and buzz Beacon Hill.