Municipal officials are well into the struggle of budget season again. Especially in the smaller towns of western Mass. The annual struggle is between adequately funding both school budgets and town operations budgets without sticking our residents with additional property taxes.
In Conway, as in most western Mass. towns, our school budgets are 55 percent of the municipal budget. The other 45 percent of the municipal budget funds town operations for all other municipal services to residents. To level fund our municipal budget of the next fiscal year to avoid an increase in property taxes, every 1percent increase in the school budgets requires a decrease of 1.25 percent in the town operations budget. The town operations budget must fund healthcare cost increases, OPEB (other post-employment benefits) liabilities, infrastructure improvement needs, vehicle and equipment replacement, etc.
School officials routinely argue that they need a level educational services budget that almost always requires an increase in funding. The mysterious public school funding formula, the unfair charter school and school choice reimbursement formula and the underfunded school transportation reimbursements add to the challenges and shortfalls in public school funding from the commonwealth.
I am a firm believer in and strongly support good education. Most students spent more time in school with their teachers than they do with their parents. Teachers are a very important part of children’s lives in their most formative years. I have always thought that for the responsibility they have, teachers are underpaid. The flip side is, that as a municipal official, I have a responsibility to the Town residents to make every effort to hold their property taxes at a reasonable level.
The trend of school versus town operations budgets seems to be getting worse with school budgets becoming a greater proportion of municipal budgets each year. School officials must re-think their approach to education to provide level educational services for level or less funding.
All too often it seems that groups that support economic development and those that support preservation of the environment see their positions as mutually exclusive. With proper economic and environmental planning, both can exist harmoniously for the greater benefit of the whole economic-environmental system. Holding to an extreme position on either side only injures the whole and stifles progress. Western Massachusetts sorely needs major economic development to combat current fiscal challenges facing municipalities. This can be accomplished while providing safeguards to preserve the natural beauty and pristine condition of our environment.
The Baker-Polito administration and the legislature enacted Chapter 219 in the Acts of 2016, “An Act Relative to Job Creation and Workforce Development” that addresses specific economic needs in the commonwealth. While this is a good start, I cannot conceive of anything less than the establishment of a comprehensive Western Massachusetts Enterprise Zone, including the four western counties of Berkshire, Franklin, Hampden and Hampshire, to effectively and successfully kick-start the economic engine of this region and radically change its economic landscape.
A Western Massachusetts Enterprise Zone would assist existing businesses, attract new businesses, large and small, to relocate here and encourage the development of entrepreneurial enterprises. These businesses would create substantial numbers of high-paying jobs as a foundation for economic growth. These businesses need low-cost energy, particularly plentiful natural gas; the latest, high-speed broadband networks and communications technologies; a highly educated and technologically-skilled workforce; workforce development and training grants; vastly improved transportation infrastructure; business-friendly zoning and expedited permitting processes; and property tax abatements.
Anything less than a major economic development initiative in western Massachusetts to increase the property tax base will only see the continuation of the current downward economic spiral and substantial annual increases in property taxes to residents.
John P. O’Rourke is the Chairman of the Board of Selectmen for the Town of Conway; the Chair of the Council of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments; on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Municipal Association and on the governor’s Local Government Advisory Commission.