Still working our way through the budget

Back again. Same old thing.

Announcements. Clarifications. Complaints.

Good explanation from the Finance Committee about our current fiscal state, followed by their good and informative explanation of their recommendation for the Public Works budget.

The Select Board wants $20,000 more for Public Works to pay for sidewalk repairs, which the public works committee informs us can’t possibly be done this year.

A TM member recommends a third option – increasing the FC recommendation by $7000, and reallocating $30,000 more to fuel costs, funded by that extra $7K and cutting two summer positions.

Another member makes a “general” recommendation, which has nothing to do with Public Works, but involves the choice between getting the legislature to let us create a “meals tax” or revising the cost-of-living adjustments for those retiring from the town.

See? Same old thing. Anyway . . .

Preliminary vote. Larger number first. That’s the Select Board’s figure and it fails strongly. I voted to oppose.

Two recommendations remain – the FC’s and the “More fuel, fewer people” one.

Questions about figures. Explanations about figures.

Vote again. Larger number first. The member’s recommendation fails almost unanimously. I again voted to oppose. Fairly quickly we vote on the appropriation of the FC’s recommended amount of $1,737,044, which passes strongly, and which I supported.

On to Planning, Conservation and Inspections. More good explanations from the Finance Committee. Unanimous support from the Select Board. Yet another option from the member who apparently never met a budget recommendation that didn’t want for a little amending. This time he wants to reduce the amount by $183,000 through various means, including eliminating positions that don’t currently exist. And for good measure, still another member recommends reducing the FC recommendation by $20,000, well, just because.

More questions and clarifications of numbers and how the department works. Then we vote again. Larger amount first – which this time is the FC recommendation. It wins on the preliminary vote and the appropriation vote of $898,047, and I vote to support it both times.

On to the Community Services budget. Still more good explanations by the Finance Committee. Every area of this budget sector is touched on, but most people are focused on just one: the funding to local human service agencies.

Originally the FC recommendation was to cut those funds in half from last year, down to $70,000. When $20,000 became available through our appropriations for General Government last week, they recommended that that $20K go here, reducing the original cut from $70,000 to $50,000, which would provide $90,000 in funding for these agencies.

The Select Board recommended a cut of only $5000 to this area, for $135,000 in funding.

The Human Services Funding Committee recommended no cuts – fund it at the same level as last year, $140,000.

Discussion predictably revolved around how worthy and vital these agencies are, even though that was never in dispute. A few brave folks dared to question the wisdom of funding them when we are in a severely compromised budget situation that cuts core town services, but they were quite overwhelmed by the stories of drama, tragedy and disaster made in support of full-funding.

This is a complicated topic, one I could argue about with myself all day. Why does the town even give money to charities? Well, it’s part of what makes Amherst good. The funding is not part of the town’s core services, which are being cut, so how can we justify it? Yeah, but we’re really talking about a tiny amount of money – can’t we find it somewhere? Shouldn’t people choose their charitable donations on their own, not have them made involuntarily through taxes? Well, taxes fund all the state and federal money such agencies get also. Ok, but does that make local tax funding better or worse? But these places depend on this money – a big cut is too drastic. On and on and on, just trying to persuade myself one way or the other.

Ultimately, when it came time to vote on the larger amount (the Human Services Funding Committee recommendation) and it passed in a tally vote of 87 in support, 76 opposed, I voted to oppose it. First of all, it makes the most sense to me that such funding is a desirable thing to do after Amherst has met all its core town needs first, and that is not the situation we’re in this year. And despite our bad situation, we were looking only to reduce, not eliminate, the funding. Secondly, as the impassioned discussion on this topic showed, Amherst residents care strongly about our local agencies, and I am confident we would not have let them suffer. An article or two in the newspaper about the loss of this money would have resulted in a huge outpouring of generosity from residents to these agencies, which might well have surpassed the funding that would have been cut.

I don’t envy the Finance Committee having to tackle that issue. If they hadn’t recommended any cuts to that area while cutting core services, they would have looked irresponsible. Instead, they did recommend cuts, and to some that is still irresponsible, or at least hard-hearted. Was it the amount? Would it have been possible to recommend a cut that was responsible but not "mean?" I think they were doomed either way. It almost required that people react to their recommendation, whatever it was going to be.

Moving on.

As I mentioned, there are many elements to the Community Services budget – Public Health, the Senior Center, the Community Services subcategory (which includes the human service agency funding,) Veterans’ Services, LSSE, pools, town commemorations and the golf course. The only other one that got real attention was the golf course.

Funding for Cherry Hill golf course is a perpetual town argument and seems to fuel a personal obsession for one TM member. Over the years, the course has lost a lot of money. This year, the Finance Committee projects that its finances will be a wash – it is expected to take in enough money in course-generated revenue to pay for itself, so while the town appropriates the operating money up front, it is expected to get all that money back.

I don’t know the whole long history of the course or all the details of the ongoing argument. To me the compelling details are these: 1) Why not consider golf to be like our other town recreation offerings? We don’t require the various pools, parks, sports programs and LSSE classes to pay for themselves – why must golf? 2) Money lost in the past is water under the bridge. Going forward, the plan seems solid enough, and we can continue to reevaluate.

The Finance Committee recommendation was supported by the Select Board. The member who opposes the course recommended reducing its budget by about $57,000 dollars, which he felt would leave it with enough to operate this season and make it possible to receive proposals for an outside group to lease or manage it on the town’s behalf, which a later article will propose.

This recommendation was accompanied by our first multi-media presentation – a video portraying the expensive history of the golf course and its repeated appearance as a Town Meeting topic. It was followed by the usual disagreements about figures. Eventually we voted and the larger amount – the FC recommendation – won, and I voted in support of it.

We finished off the evening with the official bottom-line appropriation vote for the whole community services budget area of $1,831,363, which I supported, and we then adjourned to next Monday night, June 5th.

Random bits:

The evening’s big drama came from a light bulb exploding in the ceiling, and raining down what looked to be sparks and glass on the audience. Luckily, no one was injured.

I sat in the second row from the back, in the center section, about four seats in from the left. I think I like the back the best, because I can see everything – who is raising a hand to speak, who is leaving, etc.

Much to my surprise and embarrassment, tonight I realized that Jim Scott, whom I voted for in the TMCC election, is not who I thought he was. Interesting. I’m sure he is a fine fellow and will be good on the committee anyway. Somehow, I was just a little confused . . .

While TM spent its longest evening yet in a very hot auditorium, the Blue Jays were pounding the Red Sox. Always tough to win when the other team gets 5 home runs. Guess I’m glad I missed that one.

I can barely sleep after Town Meeting. There’s so much to think about that I just can’t shut my brain off. Does anybody else have that problem?