ORANGE — In a year with cuts to services, it is unclear what will happen at the Monday, June 18, Annual Town Meeting.
The town will vote on 36 articles, including the $20 million budget — a modest increase over this year’s $19.6 million budget.
However, the proposed budget includes cuts to the schools — three sections and teachers are being let go. Class sizes will increase at Fisher Hill Elementary School, and Ralph C. Mahar Regional School is losing late buses, an administrator and two instructional staff.
All other departments in town are seeing 5 percent cuts to their requested expense budgets, except for police and fire, which are seeing 6 and 7 percent cuts to their expenses, respectively.
The increasing costs of health care and special education, paired with little state aid and the fact that Orange has the 18th lowest per capita income in the state — $18,100 compared to the state average of $42,000 — have created what Finance Committee Chairman Robert Stack has called the toughest budget situation he’s dealt with since he joined the body in 2012.
Revenues are low and costs are high, and the Selectboard has suggested the possibility of a Proposition 2½ override, which, if passed, would allow the town to raise the amount of money it can legally levy from property taxes.
The Selectboard would have to make a motion to adopt an election for a Proposition 2½ at Town Meeting. If that motion passed, a later election would determine if citizens want the override.
Four times since 2003, the town has voted down such overrides, which can raise property taxes. It is unclear how big the override might be, and a number would be deliberated at Town Meeting.
The Finance Committee was faced with making $460,000 cuts to proposed budgets, then — after various town bodies voluntarily trimmed their budgets — $160,000 in cuts. So, the town conceivably could vote to adopt an override up to $460,000.
Selectboard Chairman Ryan Mailloux, while acknowledging the history of Proposition 2½ override votes in Orange, said the town might favor an override this time if residents realize how much could be cut.
Other articles on the budget include $750,000 to be spent on reconstructing a section of North Main Street, which passes over a culvert that is aging and damaged.
The state is willing to pay for the $6 million project — with a grant through the Massachusetts Department of Transportation’s Transportation Improvement Program — as long as the town pays $750,000 for preliminary engineering.
“They (the state) want to see a commitment. They want to see us say, ‘Yes, we’re following through.’ It’s been 10 years in the making,” said Gabriele Voelker, acting town administrator.
Many articles deal with transferring money between different accounts, including $167,277 from the Dexter Park Roof Fund to repair the Orange Armory roof.
One of the more symbolic articles is to adopt a resolution that would support a bill introduced by state Rep. Byron Rushing, D-Suffolk, H-1707, calling for a special commission, including members of the state Legislature and representatives from Massachusetts’ native tribes, to investigate and recommend changes to the state flag and seal.
The flag has been seen by some as insensitive, given its depiction of a Native American alongside a sword said to be that of Myles Standish, who ambushed and killed members of a native tribe in April of 1623. Neighboring Wendell recently adopted such a resolution.
A plastic bag ban is on the warrant as well. Exemptions for “bags used to contain dry cleaning, newspaper, produce, meat, bulk foods, wet items and other similar merchandise, typically without handles” are included in the warrant article, but all other plastic bags at all retail and grocery stores are to be banned if the article passes.