ORANGE — Four times since 2003 have residents been faced with a potential tax override. And four times they have said, “No.”
This year, the Finance Committee will be recommending another Proposition 2½ tax override vote, which, if passed, would allow the town to raise more money than normally allowed from real estate and personal property taxes to make up for an approximately $730,000 gap in funding for town departments.
A joint meeting between the Selectboard, Orange Elementary School Committee and Finance Committee last week was a chance for town officials to discuss the current budget situation, just over a month away from the annual Town Meeting on June 17.
“The thinking on the Finance Committee so far has been that we are inclined — in fact, we all agree — to ask for an override this year,” Finance Committee Chairman Keith LaRiviere said.
The Finance Committee has been collecting budget requests from town departments, and has found that the town’s revenue is about $730,000 short of being able to afford the combined requests. Without a Proposition 2½ override, that gap will need to be closed by slashing departments’ requested budgets.
Proposition 2½ is a state statute requiring voter approval if a municipality’s tax revenue increases more than 2½ percent from the previous year.
In Orange’s case, the Finance Committee will likely go to Town Meeting with two budgets in mind: One budget will fund the requested departments’ budgets without further cuts, but is contingent on a Proposition 2½ vote passing. Another budget would be reserved in case the override vote fails, and would include cuts to requested budgets.
LaRiviere said there is a trend of expenses increasing by about $500,000 every year, with revenue that can’t keep up, making an override increasingly necessary.
“Either we have draconian cuts this year and have to come up with an additional $500,000 in cuts next year (without an override), or we’re looking at trying to find a million dollars out of the municipal budget,” LaRiviere said. “And costs don’t go down, they keep going up.”
Given the shortfall is about $730,000, the cuts could be significant if a tax override doesn’t pass.
“We can’t balance the budget by making cuts and making cuts and making cuts. Eventually, we’re going to be shutting down the town one department at a time. We don’t think that’s a responsible position to take,” LaRiviere said.
Last year, when there was no override vote, town departments saw at least 5 percent cuts to their requested operating budgets across the board. The schools, which last year took up around 55 percent of the total $20 million budget, lost late buses and a kindergarten class — a class was later added back with unexpected state aid.
Finance Committee member Kathy Reinig said such cuts could mean closing the libraries certain days, losing municipal staff and hundreds of thousands of dollars cut from the requested schools’ budgets.
Orange’s schools, which again are expected to take up more than 50 percent of its budget, have struggled consistently with rising costs in areas like special education, and near stagnant state aid.
The state’s Chapter 70 formula, which determines the amount of aid given to public schools, does not account for increased costs that rural schools, like those in Orange, face when it comes to transportation.
The formula also uses an “assumed percentage” when it comes to special education students. The Chapter 70 formula calculates, or “assumes,” Orange has 22 in-district special education students out of its total 613 elementary school students, but in actuality, Orange has 159 such students, creating a roughly $3.5 million gap between what the state thinks Orange needs to fund special education, and what it actually needs, according to Reinig.
The current requested budget from the Orange Elementary Schools is $6,953,117, a $577,473 increase (9 percent) over this year. The governor’s budget is only looking to increase, currently, the amount of Chapter 70 money to Orange by $32,965.
However, according to Superintendent Tari Thomas, state legislators are pushing for an additional roughly $142,000 for Orange in Chapter 70 funding.
Even with the extra money, LaRiviere said, an override would still be necessary — just a smaller override than $730,000.
Wednesday’s tri-board meeting revealed several misunderstandings between the three boards, adding to the difficulty of coming up with a balanced budget.
First, the Finance Committee and Selectboard have still not seen a detailed version of the elementary school budget, which members from both bodies expected to see Wednesday. No budget presentation was given by the School Committee, despite being an item on the agenda for the meeting.
“I don’t want this to come across as crass or offensive, but that’s what tonight was,” Selectboard Chairman Ryan Mailloux told the School Committee when the idea of having another, future joint meeting came up.
As a voter, Mailloux said, he would like to see details about where the schools are spending money before voting “Yes” on a tax override.
Chief among concerns was the School Committee revealing a total of nine new employees had been hired during the school year — classroom teachers, special education paraprofessionals, an additional guidance counselor and a classroom paraprofessional.
“I’m confused. How can you do that?” said Finance Committee member Anthony Leger. “I understand there were certain needs, but a budget was presented and voted on by the people, and if you added these nine positions outside of the budget process and then you say, ‘Well, we need all the funding for it the next year,’ I don’t get that exactly.”
Several allusions were made to problems Fisher Hill Elementary School had with student behavior this year. Teachers and parents alike reported throughout the school year kindergarten and first grade classrooms being evacuated dozens of times to keep students away from violent peers acting out.
Also, a substitute principal was hired for most of the school year while Principal Maureen Donelan was placed on paid administrative leave. Donelan was ultimately fired, despite strong public support and having been cleared by the state of allegations of abuse and neglect. No explanation for the firing was giving by school officials, but Donelan’s lawyer said she was “scapegoated” for an incident caused by underfunding at the school.
School Committee Chairwoman Stephanie Conrod explained about the new hires — which occurred after the problems with behavior in the school started — that “the town appropriates an amount of money to the school, and it’s within the school’s purview to decide where that money is allocated.”
However, LaRiviere, Leger and Selectboard member Bill Wrigley all pointed out that new hires aren’t as simple as moving money around, and that hires have years of impact on the town’s budget in areas like health insurance, in addition to salaries.
“You made a multi-year decision to hire all these people,” Leger said. “I don’t think it’s really good business practice.”
“Increasing your staff by nine positions mid-year is not a common occurance… I would like to see some detail,” Wrigley said.
LaRiviere said the schools’ budget lacks the transparency of others, and that the schools seem to be able to pay for unexpected things when they come up.
School Committee member Diane Salcedo explained that many of the schools’ expenses throughout the year are unpredictable, like new kindergartners and their needs and special education programs for students which the state mandates the school fund, requiring the school to allocate money. Salcedo suggested against an override vote, calling it premature and predicting a trend of more Chapter 70 funding from the state over the next few years.
“We try to guess the best we can. Turned out last year, we had some problems,” Salcedo said. “We had more extraordinary needs than we were expecting. We had to hire staff to deal with that.”
The meeting adjourned after LaRiviere asked for the schools to provide the Finance Committee with a detailed budget, showing where there are increases and decreases in spending, by the next Finance Committee meeting May 13. Thomas said she would do her best.
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.