Robbing Peter to pay pool

If it weren’t for the debt service vote at the end, we might actually have made negative progress on the warrant. Otherwise, we spent the whole night on Cherry Hill and pools, two subjects that just haven’t had quite enough discussion yet.

I could just cut and paste from previous recaps, as this was the same people saying the same things about the same subjects. But that’s no fun. However, I can’t quite bring myself to do a blow-by-blow rehash of all this tired stuff again. So this will be a little different.

Intro: The Moderator noted that this was our 9th session and we need to move along so people can get on with their lives. Apparently, this message was lost on the body. He also emphasized when the “highly-privileged” point of order is in order—Yes: to correct the Moderator, to get clarification on which motion is being voted, to note that the speaker can’t be heard, or other points pertaining to the running of the meeting; No: to note that a speaker is incorrect or misleading or not providing sufficient info.

Cherry Hill redux: This time, it was through its Community Services line item. Larry Kelley moved to reduce its funding. He seems to think that the course won’t meet its projections. His proposal would fund it through the end of December. A member noted how the budget calendar and the golf season calendar line up badly. The Town Manager said: give the new management a chance. Other people said: give the new management a chance. Some people thought this reduction could be used to instead fund the pools. The problem is, Cherry Hill operating revenues come from Cherry Hill fees. The Town doesn’t write Cherry Hill a check for its operating money – the Town appropriates, or “authorizes the spending of,” $231,862 (in FY08, including employee benefits) by and for Cherry Hill. But Cherry Hill brings in all of that money – or almost all of it. It is when they bring in less or spend more than the appropriation that the Town has to bail it out. So the Town does not spend $200K+ per year on the course – the Town only spends the shortfall amount – about $35K for FY07, I think – which, as Larry is happy to tell you, isn’t pocket change and really adds up over time. We had all the same questions, pros and cons from the discussion at last week’s Special TM. We finally voted on the Finance Committee’s number, because it was larger than the amended amount, and it passed soundly in a voice vote. I voted Yes. To me, an RFP would be a new plan and an actual protection against loss, whereas simply docking the budget would be meaningless and counterproductive. And can we finally put to rest this erroneous notion that all the budgets were held to 1% increases? That only applied to the overall Town, School and Library budgets – individual departments went up and down, as is made quite obvious in the “% Change” column of the FinCom Report. And nothing inspires sympathetic votes like a motion that is doomed to fail on the ninth night of Town Meeting, when no end is in sight.

Orphan areas: Public Health, the Senior Center, Veterans’ Services and Town Commemorations lack the kind of passionate advocates and opponents of the human service funding, LSSE, the pools and the golf course, so they went quickly and unchallenged.

Belly flop: Just before we voted the bottom line on Community Services, someone who had to leave the meeting prior to the pool voting last time moved to reconsider. I hate reconsiderations like this. I hated it last spring when it could have led to an outcome I preferred, and I hate it now, when it was all but certain to lead to one I oppose. Reconsiderations of this kind are a failure to accept that in a democracy, you don’t always get your way. I understand the process allows for this, but I think it is an abuse of the spirit of the rules. The fact is that the pool funding was voted down fair and square last time. To game the system by working to have more of “your” voters present for a re-vote is not so far from tampering. What next? We start preventing those with whom we disagree from attending Town Meeting? Let the air out of their tires? Sabotage their tally vote cards? This kind of “all is fair in love, war and politics” sentiment really offends me. But victory via jerkiness is a time-honored American tradition. Thanks, but I’d rather lose. And I did. The vote to reconsider was 95 Yes and 82 No.

Eureka: But thank goodness reconsideration won! Otherwise, I and others might not have realized that War Memorial pool is really important to people. A lot of people enjoy it. Especially in the summer. Some have even learned to swim there. Who knew?

Pasta pitch: Arguments in favor of the pool were another instance of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick. Mill River is too far away. It will be extra pollution to drive and bus people there. Closing the pool will lead to increased juvenile delinquency. Puffer’s Pond will be too crowded. People who don’t know how to swim might drown at Puffer’s. War Memorial pool is an integrated melting pot. People with disabilities use it. Swimming is good exercise. Heck, I was ready to propose we increase the budget further and build another pool in South Amherst. Must be fair to all, must meet every need, cost be damned.

Eat the rich: How many times over both nights were we subject to the argument that not all families have their own pool or go away for summer vacations? This whole class shaming thing is getting really old. And where are all these private Amherst pools anyway? The way people talk about that, you’d think this was Florida.

Just like home: Select Board Chair Gerry Weiss did something I thought was very smart – he divided the numbers by 100 to make them more manageable, and compared them to a household budget. He said if you had intended to put $13,000 into savings this year, (the Town’s $1.3M reserve increase) and had an unexpected $2,380 expense for a roof repair (the $238,000 from the Regional School assessment) would you really want to deny your children the $700 dollars ($70,000 pool cost) that it would cost to have the backyard pool? He said it wasn’t a matter of not putting money into savings, just a matter of putting in less. So that was a good concept, but I would take it a step further. Is it really better that the kids should have the pool if it means continuing to inadequately fund the family savings, leaving them in dire straights if Mom’s car dies or Dad loses his job?

Perception and precipitation: A common issue with Cherry Hill is how weather-dependent its success is. I don’t know what money doesn’t get expended at the pools when weather is bad, but now that this issue has become such a big deal, it will be hard not to think of the lost money if it is a rainy summer.

Reservations on reserves: Bryan Harvey did an excellent walk-through of Brian Morton’s reserves graph. But it was no use. Some people are convinced that putting money in reserves is either mean or crooked. And the continuing refrain about the school money being separate and how the pool money wouldn’t come from reserves, but from the general government cut, is perplexing. That’s like saying that you don’t have enough money in your checking account to pay your bills, and the money in your wallet and under your mattress doesn’t count. It’s all the same money folks. Before the pools, we have about $58,000 that can be appropriated before we’re in the red. But because we know we have to come up with $238,000 for the Regional Schools, we’re actually already in the red by $180,000. Put that $58K to the pools, and we’re in the red for the whole $238K. “In the red” means using reserves. Or seeking an override which would be amusing for a couple of reasons: a) as one member pointed out, that would cost another $14,000; and b) if it failed, guess where the money would have to come from? Reserves! It’s not an optional expenditure – not like the last override, whose failure meant we wouldn’t be paying for those firefighters … or the pool… or… Hmmmm.

Follow through: Actually, to me that last point is the biggest negative of funding the pool. What is a person supposed to believe? How will we ever get people to trust that Town government will do what it says it will do with a multi-year plan, if even a straightforward set of override-dependent expenditures turns out to be a crock? Furthermore, if there are no tangible consequences to not passing an override, then how do we persuade people that it is necessary? Most people don’t see or recognize the reductions to text books and supplies at the schools, the creeping class sizes, the gradual trimming away of special programs. They don’t see the staff being spread too thin at Town Hall, or the proportional decrease in police protection. That these are not widely perceived would be considered by some to mean that reductions led to new efficiency; I would say it means that Amherst is subjecting itself to death by a thousand cuts. Closing the pool would be stark evidence that the Town is in tough financial shape. It’s hard to blame a person for believing things can’t be that bad if Amherst still has not one but two public pools open this summer.

Splash: Sure enough, the vote to fund the pool was successful, but that was almost a foregone conclusion. One of the operatives of reconsideration told me he and others had been working the phones since last week, getting attendance and voting commitments from some critical mass. He said that if the headcount was right, they would move to reconsider. Welcome to Tammany Hall. The first vote was on the Select Board’s amount, and it failed in a tally of 88 Yes, 94 No. By strange coincidence, the Oldham motion, for $12,000 less, passed with the reverse totals: 94 Yes and 88 No. That led to approval of the bottom line appropriation for Community Services at $1,743,604.

What if: So perhaps the pools and the human services funding are indeed sacred cows of the Amherst budget. If they had both been fully funded (whatever fully-funding human services would mean,) does that mean we would have sailed through this budget? Or does it mean that those determined to exercise their advocacy and passions would simply have chosen different targets?

Debt: No, not the debt we are imposing on the future by failing to prioritize today’s reserve funds. This is debt service, or “General Fund Indebtedness,” a separate budget section. Blessedly, we have moved on from General Government. This is the cost of principal and interest payments on the Town’s big-ticket borrowing. I was too depressed to take good notes here though – sorry. The vote to appropriate the $1,491,359 as recommended by the Finance Committee was unanimous.

Cancel those elitist yuppie vacation plans: So how can we make this take even longer? What else can we reconsider? Can we find another way to address Cherry Hill? Are there more procedural motions we might exploit? Have we exhausted all possibilities for screwing up the Regional Assessment? Does anyone have a pet cause that needs indulging? Ahh, Town government in action.

Or rather: Town government inaction.

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If only the override had passed

Wednesday’s motion sheet had included one for reconsideration of the Regional Schools’ budget, and I thought to myself, “Here we go…” I was not expecting it to be the Finance Committee seeking reconsideration.

Sure enough, it turns out that the symbolic 2% vote from Monday isn’t quite good enough. FinCom Chair Alice Carlozzi told us that she had been mistaken in saying that if 3% prevails with the region that we don’t need to take another vote. In fact, there does need to be an appropriation vote to match a corresponding expenditure.

This was just an announcement to begin the meeting – we needed to have a Special TM first, then we would return to the reconsideration question.

Article 1 of the Special is a housekeeping article that had previously been Article 15 of the Annual. It is a two-parter. Part A allows the transfer of money between different functional areas to let excesses in one make up for deficiencies in another. As we all know, and should know even better after this meeting, the Town Manager can move money around as necessary within a functional area, but TM’s approval is needed to move money between functional areas because it was our appropriation that “gave” each area its money during last year’s budget votes. Under the motion made by Brian Morton of the FinCom, we were to approve increasing the FY07 appropriation to General Government by $72,800 and decreasing the appropriations to Planning, Conservation and Inspections by $34,800 and Debt Service by $38,000 accordingly.

There were some questions about this – the specifics of the departmental overages and underages, particularly as pertained to Cherry Hill. A member pointed out that we were increasing the FY07 General Government appropriation by $72,800 after having recently cut the FinCom’s recommended FY08 General Government appropriation by $100,000 and asked whether this might suggest we would be making a similar transfer next year. FinCom said – “Yup.” After a couple other questions and comments, we voted. The voice vote was nearly unanimous, except for those two or three pathological No votes that we almost always have. Honestly – what is up with that? What possible opposition could one have to what is essentially technicality – a vote to clean up our FY07 books? Is there a legitimate dissenting opinion here? Are these couple of people really opposed to government in general or the FinCom in particular? Does that feel like a protest vote? It does make the idea of tally votes for everything rather attractive (as if TM doesn’t last long enough…) Would they still vote No on the record? Or is it a symptom of that TM plague – enjoying the sound of one’s own voice?

Part B was to increase the appropriation to the Finance Committee’s reserve fund by $50,000 through a transfer from Free Cash to cover the FY07 shortfall. Again, last year’s Town Meeting voted to decrease the Finance Committee’s recommended appropriation of $100,000 by half. And now we need to use reserves to cover that same amount that we had cut. Are any doubters starting to recognize that the Finance Committee isn’t making up their budget recommendations? These numbers are not arbitrary, they are not wild guesses, and they aren’t value judgments. They reflect the realities of how much the business of government costs based on how much it has cost in the past, and based on educated and careful projections of revenues and expenses. Mr. Morton reminded us of the specifics of the cuts, redistributions and additional appropriations that TM made last year and how without them, this article may have been unnecessary.

The vote on this was again nearly unanimous, with one or two of the (same? different?) renegade Nos.

Article 2 of the Special sought to advise the Select Board to advise the Town Manager to re-RFP Cherry Hill – under more reasonable conditions and with an expectation of accepting an appropriate bid. Petitioner Larry Kelley, apparently under the auspices of Amherst Taxpayers for Responsible Change, brought forth his usual litany of figures to illustrate the golf course’s drain on Town money. (Production values weren’t quite up to their usual standards however. Last year we got a documentary short feature, this year we got numbers scribbled on the back of an envelope. I was expecting 3-D, or maybe a laser light show.)

The Finance Committee supported the recommendation, the Select Board didn’t. The Town Manager listed all the reasons he didn’t accept the Niblick bid (didn’t want to lose control of valuable asset, didn’t want to lease Town equipment for its upkeep, ambiguous deal, opposes privatization of Town stuff) why he is optimistic about the course’s future under new Town management (big improvements, better marketing, new programs, improved results so far.) People asked questions about his threshold for giving up on this (poor results next year would make him reconsider an RFP, but he wants to try first) and about organic turf management (they’re doing more of that with help from UMass’ Stockbridge School,) and others spoke to the beauty and potential of the course. The vote on the article was defeated pretty soundly, and I voted Yes.

I really don’t give a whoop about Cherry Hill. I have no real problem with it not making money – thinking about it like the other recreation programs of LSSE is fine with me. I don’t find the argument about subsidizing out-of-towners compelling, whether or not it is true. Considering some of the stories I’ve heard about past course management or lack thereof, I think the finances almost can’t help but improve. And yet, I just don’t see a downside to outside management. The whole “people enjoy the course for non-golf activities” thing doesn’t seem to me to be precluded by a lease deal. Continuing LSSE’s low-fee golf programs and protecting the land from being wrecked both seem like simple details taken care of by a good contract. No one expects the place to be a goldmine under the best circumstances, so it isn’t like they want to keep Amherst from missing out on that windfall. Is it possible that by annoying citizens and Town officials alike on this issue for 20 years, Larry has simply entrenched his opposition? I can’t believe that’s really the case, but it could be as good an explanation as any.

Done with the Special. Back to the Annual.

Oh, yes, that reconsideration thing. Ms. Carlozzi reiterated her earlier points and said that we need to re-vote this, just to clean things up and enable us to finish TM with a completed and balanced budget.

Select Board Chair Gerry Weiss moved to postpone reconsideration until just before Article 31 is dealt with – the one where we seek money from reserves to cover unfunded appropriations. He said that on Monday people wanted to give the Regional School committee the opportunity to consider the E&D proposal and to have Pelham TM’s final decision on June 13th. The Regional SC had met but several members weren’t there and they didn’t vote about the alternative proposal, and with Pelham’s final vote still a week away, he said there was no rush to do this now.

The Moderator reminded us that having brought forth the motion to reconsider, this was our only shot.

Andy Churchill of the Regional SC said they had discussed the issue in depth the night before, and that Pelham and Shutesbury Select Board members and a Pelham Finance Committee member were present. He said that there was no interest in using the E&D money for this, and while they did not vote, he did not expect there would be sufficient support from the full committee for the 2/3 majority that E&D use would require.

People spoke for and against postponing reconsideration. Those speaking for it emphasized that we will have more complete info if we wait; that there seems to be no harm in waiting; and that if the vote for 3% failed to pass tonight, that would be procedurally problematic. Those speaking against it said that it would make the $238,000 shortfall more real to us and might keep us more disciplined in the rest of our budget actions; that we might as well do it now; and that the small risk of the 3% failing could be easily taken care of with a Special TM if necessary.

The question was called, and we voted on the motion to postpone. The voice vote was too close to call, so we had a standing vote.

This was another one of these brain-twisting TM moments. The arguments on both sides sounded perfectly reasonable to me – it was six of one, half-dozen of the other. So I really had no idea how to vote, and in the voice vote, I abstained. The standing vote is supposed to confirm the voice vote, so was I even allowed to participate in the standing vote? I decided yes, but that still didn’t solve my dilemma of how to vote. So I decided that members all have their own angles on this, wise and otherwise. But the School Committee had a vested interest in the outcome. So when I saw that Andy Churchill was standing to vote in support of postponement, that was good enough for me, and I stood as well. The motion to postpone passed, 104 Yes and 69 No.

Back to Community Services, which we had last dealt with a week ago, having only determined the amount for the human services funding line. This time, it’s LSSE.

The FinCom’s recommendation was for $637,704. The Select Board’s recommendation was for $625,704. Mr. Weiss spoke to the Select Board’s figure, saying they had originally voted 3-2 to cut $24,000 from there, to complete their redistribution of money to restore funds for the War Memorial pool and wading pools. But he said they had taken the $12,000 that TM had rejected from the SB’s recommendation to restore Puffer’s Pond seasonal staff and trail maintenance and put it into LSSE. He said that $1,000 was intended to provide childcare for Town Meeting members who need it in order to attend TM. He said childcare money was something that had been decided on in the past, but wasn’t being funded, and that we need to deliver on this promise.

Andy Steinberg of the FinCom spoke of how the cut to LSSE would jeopardize programs and that there had already been staff reductions and fee increases, and that with summer LSSE programs already underway, it was too late to increase those fees anyway. He spoke about the importance of subsidies for low-income participants, and how even a small fee increase has a large cumulative effect.

An LSSE commission member talked about the large numbers of people served by LSSE programs and their positive effect on the community, and how LSSE’s percentage of tax support is at its lowest level in 10 years.

There was some discussion of the pools as their funding relates to the SB’s LSSE cut, and whether the Town Manager would be obligated to use such money for the pools if these votes were to pass. The Town Manager talked about how the Town Government Act gives the Manager the authority to move money around within categories to use as he sees necessary, but he said that having that authority and utilizing it were two different issues. He said he would be very conscious of the vote of TM and the recommendation by the Select Board, and said that only under extreme circumstances would he go against those.

A member – OK, it was me – mentioned that the intent of the SB adding back $12,000 of their original LSSE cut was to provide $1,000 for childcare and $11,000 for the Puffer’s Pond maintenance that TM had rejected last week, and asked if that might be elaborated on a bit.

Mr. Shaffer said that Puffer’s Pond has to be maintained, even if the funding isn’t there, so the Select Board added the Conservation money to LSSE to fund that maintenance.

Hmmmm.

So we are voting whether or not to fund things that may or may not be funded regardless of our vote.

I certainly understand that the Town Manager needs the ability move money around as necessary. But why would a required item have been left off the core 1% budget and treated as a restoration, when there is apparently no intent or possibility of it not happening? Doesn’t that seem less like moving money around as necessary and more like a bait and switch? And isn’t that kind of like what happened with the firefighters? And the line painting? And doesn’t that make something of a mockery of this whole Town Meeting budget process?

And the Select Board, whose chain is similarly being yanked, wasn’t exactly forthcoming with the info that they had earmarked that money for Puffer’s Pond. Mr. Weiss had said in the course of their discussions about this on Monday that the motion to put this money into LSSE to do something that had already been rejected by Town Meeting seemed like an “end-around” move, and Ms Awad had said that it was honest because it was what the Select Board wanted. Yet they opted to talk about the $1,000 for childcare, and conveniently didn’t mention the Puffer’s Pond part.

Is Town Meeting being toyed with from without and within?

I don’t really know what to make of this. I have championed the Town Manager’s budget all along, on my abiding belief that he is the one who knows best what the priorities are of Town government as a whole, and that the budget he recommended was created through a careful and informed process. I worked hard – not hard enough, apparently – in support of the override based on that same belief. Now I’m not sure what to think.

Maybe I’ll go take a dip in the War Memorial pool to clear my mind. Yes, we would later (spoiler alert!) vote down funding for that, but such things don’t appear to be linked here in Amherst through the looking-glass.

After a nice presentation of LSSE numbers and the relationship between tax support and fees, and a few more comments about this wacky process, how LSSE doesn’t do karate, ballet or gymnastics, and the value of LSSE to low-income families, we voted. The vote was on the Finance Committee’s amount – without the SB’s reduction. Too close to call, it went to a standing vote. 89 Yes and 81 No. I voted Yes.

Now people – we must learn to work the clock on these things a wee-bit better. If the vote finishes before 10:00 p.m. – even one minute before – then we have to start the next line or article. Couldn’t we have delayed our standing and sitting down just a tad? Couldn’t we have maybe had a brief commotion? Don’t tell the Moderator, but let’s try to never finish a vote just before 10:00, OK?

No such luck this night. At 9:59, we started the pools.

The Select Board’s recommendation was to add $70,812 to the pools line, to restore funding to War Memorial pool and the wading pools. Mr. Weiss said that the SB had voted unanimously for this and said so many people benefit from the pools, that closing War Memorial would make the Mill River pool and Puffer’s Pond more crowded. He said that the last vote meant that the SB’s plan was $12,000 over budget, but so be it. He said he would hate to have the pools not open and find at the end of the summer that we could have afforded them.

Jim Oldham offered an amendment for $12,000 less, to open the pools but not go over the 1% budget. He said that LSSE could determine how to make due without that $12K, and that the motion, if passed, would convey the sense of Town Meeting that it wants the pools open.

Mr. Steinberg, speaking for the FinCom, said how difficult it was for him to recommend against funding the pools, but that these were the kinds of things that had been contingent on the override passing, and it didn’t pass. He spoke about the need to not take money from reserves, and said that it is not uncommon for the schools to have a higher increase than other parts of the budget. He mentioned the hiring schedule for staffing the pool and said that all swimming lessons were able to be accommodated at the Mill River pool.

The LSSE Commission Chair spoke to the history and importance of the War Memorial pool. Another member asked about the ability to hire lifeguards at this point.

LSSE Director Linda Chalfant wins the Guilford Mooring “Truth in Government” award for this session, saying that aquatic staff is among the hardest positions to fill, and that the pool would still require prep work by the DPW in order to open, and that if this funding were approved, she would do everything in her power to get War Memorial open this summer, but that it would be hard to do.

A member spoke to how approval of the Select Board’s $100,000 cut to general government implied the desire to re-allocate that money according to the SB’s plan, and said he was sorry the Finance Committee had treated that money as floating funds. He said it was an anomaly of how the budget is presented that those funds couldn’t be immediately moved to a different functioning area, as had been done with the Special TM budget amendment article earlier in the evening.

Another member reiterated the points about the override having failed and the alternative having been a 1% budget. He said parents and other hadn’t been advocating for particular extras and that fiscal restraint had been accepted for this year. He said that the pools would be available for 60 days or fewer, and that there was still one municipal pool in town as well as those at apartment complexes, and said that there are still hoses and sprinklers. He said that unlike the pools, the Regional School Assessment was not an optional expenditure.

The question was called, and everyone already had their tally vote cards ready. First up was the vote on the Select Board’s higher amount. It was defeated 62 Yes and 101 No. Next up was Mr. Oldham’s amount, it too was defeated and because the results were so close, it was recounted and the results stood: 78 Yes and 84 No. I voted No on both.

We adjourned around 10:30-ish. I didn’t write it down.

Quite a night.

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School daze

Appropriate to the theme of the evening, we began with a gentle reminder: Boys and girls – behave yourselves! No taunting, hitting, biting or spitballs, especially during tally votes. Apparently, there had been an incident…

After a procedural motion to postpone Community Services, we took up the school budgets, as had been scheduled by a previous procedural motion.

Superintendent Jere Hochman began with a presentation (an abbreviated version of this) about the schools, as a way of grounding the discussion.

Finance Committee Chair Alice Carlozzi made the Finance Committee’s recommendation of $19,456,715, a 1% budget. Details of her recommendation are available in the FinCom Report.) She called it an “austerity budget,” and said it was not a “disaster.” She said that the majority of the School Committee recommended it for the same reason that the FinCom does – it offers an opportunity for the Town to create a multi-year financial plan to begin next year, and to not jeopardize that opportunity with a small override this year.

School Committee Chair Andy Churchill said the School Committee had voted to support the 1% budget 4-1, even though they weren’t happy about it. He said that the failure of the override, desire to not use reserves and general limited available funds made them conclude that this was the best option. He said that all the SC members are also members of the Regional School Committee, and that the regional budget situation is more desperate, and the overage of its 3% will probably have to come from reserves. He said that adding more to the elementary school budget would be too much to ask for from reserves, and said they didn’t want to doom next year’s override prospects. He said that he was surprised to have a lot of parents urging the School Committee to hold the line at 1% this year. He said that they can scrape by at these levels this year but that the excellence of both the regional and elementary schools are at risk, and talked about the significant cuts that have been made over the last few years. He also highlighted some special successes in student achievement and mentoring programs. He spoke of challenges posed by the uneven distribution of low-income families among the elementary schools, and the challenges inherent in the physical space of the aging building.

Alisa Brewer reported the Select Board’s unanimous support for the recommendation.

Members asked about the particulars of delaying the musical instrument programs by a year (starting strings in 4th grade instead of 3rd, and winds and percussion in 5th grade instead of 4th;) and asked the usual questions about the ratios of staff and dollars to students.

Dick Mudgett proposed an amendment for a 3% budget ($19,842,043,) calling a 1% elementary school budget “highly discriminatory” as the regional schools are expected to get 3%. He talked about how crucial learning is at the elementary level and about the good experiences his children had had in the system, and the expense and necessity of quality special ed services.

Chrystel Romero, who cast the lone dissenting vote on the School Committee’s recommendation, proposed an amendment for a 2% budget ($19,649,715.) She said the biggest priority is more teachers in order to reduce class sizes. She said that Town Meeting votes a bottom-line number for the schools and that the school committee then directs the Superintendent how to spend it, and said that was different from the Town situation. She said that the school budget was created before she became a school committee member and it doesn’t represent her priorities. She said that if you want different priorities you need to change the School Committee membership. (Ouch! And kind of a funny thing for the only non-elected SC member to say.) She said the schools shouldn’t have to scrape by and that the future was too unpredictable to sacrifice this year for a better expected outcome next year.

Vince O’Connor proposed a budget that gives Medicaid and MassHealth reimbursements back to the elementary schools ($19,581,715.) He said that the schools do all the work for this money, but it gets deposited in Town accounts, unlike at the regional level, where he said they keep those funds. He said the School Committee had been trying to resolve this with the Finance Committee for three years, and he cited a bunch of arguments against doing this that he called “red herrings:” that the money is already allocated elsewhere; that other departments would then want the revenues they generate; something I didn’t understand about the reserve situation being different than it was last year; and that doing this isn’t required by law. He explained why he found those arguments uncompelling. He said his proposal would provide funding for two additional teachers.

Ms. Carlozzi said the FinCom didn’t favor any of the proposals, because any increase would compound the shortfalls projected for FY09, and she repeated cautions against using reserves or having a small override. She said the reimbursement issue has been under discussion but that they ran out of time for this budget, and said that there are details that need to be worked out.

I find the reimbursement issue an interesting one – it is the same one the library is concerned with regarding their overdue fines. Certainly it seems fair and reasonable that the entity that took in the money should keep the money – leaving aside the whole can of worms about whether the Clerk’s office should keep passport fees and whether the I.T. department might as well start selling something too – but it also seems irrelevant. Going back to the budget-as-pie analogy, if the slice we are going to cut for the elementary schools is yay big, then where the funds come from that make up that slice hardly matters. We aren’t going to give them their full slice PLUS the reimbursement money – that money is already figured in to their slice. Without the reimbursement money, the slice would be the same size; the funds would just come from other sources. Despite having sat through numerous meetings where the term “revolving fund” is tossed around in relation to this issue, I don’t actually know what that means. If it means that it is separate from the rest of the pie, I don’t think that changes my point. If you would be expecting them to get $X from the revolving fund, then you would reduce the size of their pie slice accordingly. At least that’s how I would expect it to work. I may not agree with Mr. O’Connor too often – an understatement – but he is certainly intelligent and well-informed, so I would want to know his take on this. But not at the 11th hour.

Mr. Churchill said that it was odd to be a School Committee member and be in the position of recommending the lowest budget amount. He said it is not a matter of strange priorities but a practical question of where additional money would come from. He said that class size is the main concern and that there are a few places where that is problematic, but he read the averages for classes in each grade in each school which were in the teens and low twenties, and said that these were not the classes of 25-27 students that they had been afraid they might have. He said the override didn’t pass and that left no viable source for additional funds.

Mr. Kusner said that the Select Board had no official position on the amendments but that he would urge support for a higher number, saying that elementary education is one of the most crucial things we do as a society.

A member asked how the different proposals would impact the schools. The Superintendent said that for budgeting purposes, they use an average of $50,000 per teacher, so the different proposals would provide for a couple of new teachers. He said that based on analysis of the numbers Mr. Churchill had cited, the priority for placing teachers would be determined. But he said that it wasn’t as easy as looking at the simple class size number. He said it is rare that a class has all its students all day long because children with different needs and abilities work with specialists for some lessons.

One member talked about MCAS issues at Crocker Farm and how cuts at the elementary level mean more needs aren’t being met, and that the problems for those students will get worse as they advance to higher grades. Another spoke about the need to focus personnel on those working directly with students, how Amherst’s SPED money could support a paraprofessional for each student, and how the State and Federal mandates and their required paperwork need to be addressed because they negatively impact the system. Elaine Brighty of the School Committee, agreed about the mandate and paperwork problems, and said that the priority is the adults working with children, and that one paraprofessional per special ed student wouldn’t address all needs – some kids need multiple specialists.

There were questions about whether more money would be spent on staffing if it were voted (probably,) whether those making amendments have to identify the source of funds (no, but it’s helpful,) about the status of projected town and school reserves (around $4.2M for the town and more detail to follow on the schools,) and what class size goals are (the targets are 22 for K-2nd, 23 for 3rd and 4th, and 24 for 5th and 6th grades.)

Brian Morton of the FinCom presented another great graph of historical and projected reserves, reserve usage, State aid and bonding level recommendations. This is always interesting and he explains it very well.

A member suggested that an override or reserves were not the only options for finding new revenues: cuts could be made from other parts of the budget, such as the capital plan. Ms. Carlozzi said that capital spending has been diminished and diverted for several years and that it is important to maintain a balance between the services we provide and the equipment and facilities we need to support them.

The question was called and then we came to a vote, starting with the highest amount first. The 3% Mudgett amendment failed decisively; the 2% Romero amendment failed decisively; the reimbursement-based O’Connor amendment failed somewhat less decisively, but a tally vote was called for, confirming the defeat: 55 Yes to 141 No. I voted No.

The subsequent voice vote for the 1% Finance Committee recommendation – $19,456,715 – was nearly unanimous with the typical smattering of Nos.

On to the Regional School budget.

This one boils down to the 3% recommendation from the Regional School Committee –which all legal sources agree that Amherst is going to have to pay regardless of how we vote, because it has already been agreed to by the three other towns in the region – versus the Finance Committee’s 2% recommendation, which is both a last-gasp hope for a reprieve and intended to make a statement to the other towns that Amherst is in tough financial shape. Ms. Carlozzi said that she doesn’t think anything is likely to change with the other towns and that it is expected that we will have to pay the 3%.

I just can’t bear to summarize again details related to the whole three-out-of-four towns thing or the iterations of the interpreting the revised statute. Feel free to consult a couple of previous blog entries and multiple SB recaps if you want or need more info on that.

Other than that stuff…

Ms. Brighty said the regional budget is very different than the elementary budget, which is mostly made up of people. She said the region has capital, facility and transportation costs, as well as the costs of paying tuition of students from Amherst who attend other schools (the elementary budget has that too, but less.) She said that the cost of paying tuition for students attending charter schools is expected to be more than $500,000 in FY08.

Mr. Weiss said that the Select Board had supported the 3% recommendation 3-2, and that he had proposed a compromise to the Regional SC that morning, whereby Amherst would pay 2% and that the additional 1% would come from the Region’s E&D funds, but that there had been no agreement on the proposal.

Ms. Brighty explained that E&D stands for excess and deficiency, and that those funds are not supposed to be less than 3.5% of the budget and would be preferred to be at 5%. She said that the region doesn’t have a town’s reserve fund to tap for a new boiler or to fix a roof leak or to cover higher-than-anticipated bills – these types of expenses are covered by E&D money. She said that what that total would be at the end of this fiscal year is uncertain because the revenues and expenses need to be reconciled. In response to other questions, she said that the amount of E&D would affect bonding for borrowing, and that that fund has been drained in recent years to pay bills.

Dr. Hochman said that the Regional SC members had been reluctant to consent to using E&D money as a last resort to eliminate the second study hall, so while he couldn’t speak for them, he wasn’t optimistic that they would accept its use for Mr. Weiss’ proposal. In response to a member’s question, he explained the Pelham Town Meeting situation which some seem to believe suggests that they might stray from the 3%. He said that in early May, Pelham TM had overwhelmingly approved both the per-pupil assessment method and the 3% budget. He said there were a couple of issues about their elementary school budget, but that that had also ultimately passed overwhelmingly. He said they will reconvene on June 13th to complete their work and vote on the entire budget again.

A member wanted clarification on what the E&D amount is currently, having recently heard $1.3M and $1.5M, and the suggestion that they might be 3.5% of the school budget, which he said would equal $977,000. Ms. Brighty said that it is a moving target, but that best estimates are $1.3M to $1.5M.

Ms. Brighty talked about how much fixed costs had increased since FY05, particularly health insurance and utilities, and the significant cuts that had been made.

Ms. Carlozzi said that the region is a separate legal entity and can’t be told what to do, but that Town Meeting can advise. She said that if the 3% is pursued, we will pay it because we have to, and that the FinCom is reluctantly willing to take that money from reserves, but is not willing to use reserves for any other overages.

Mr. Weiss reiterated the Select Board’s mixed vote to support the 3% recommendation, and said that the region’s E&D money was well above the 3.5% that is required.

A member asked what would happen if Amherst rejected the 3% – would it require a new Town Meeting vote? Ms. Carlozzi said that no further action would be needed – Amherst would have to pay and would pay.

So it was time to vote, and the larger Regional SC amount was first. A tally vote was called for, and that amount was rejected, 76 Yes and 114 No. I voted Yes.

This was a little tough. I obviously favor the Finance Committee recommendations, and I am firm in my “no override this year/no use of reserves” stance. But the regional agreement trumps that which is in Amherst’s individual financial interest. What good is an agreement if you are only going to go along with it when it works to your advantage? If Amherst, as the much larger town, is going to lord its weight over the smaller towns, then we’ve abandoned fairness for might. Not only is that yucky on the face of it, but it could really derail the important cooperative relationship that enables the region to function effectively.

And support of the 2% FinCom recommendation is largely symbolic.

So I voted for the Regional School Committee’s 3% amount, and once that failed, I voted for the Finance Committee’s 2% amount. And with that, and with none of the histrionics I had expected from this discussion, the school budgets are now blessedly done. I hope.

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Inching forward, ever so slowly

The previous post was a mere snippet of the meeting, evocative though it was. This one is the whole enchilada.

First up, Jim Chumbley moved to reconsider Article 16 – approval of the regional school assessment formula. He said that the new information regarding the Department of Education’s interpretation of the revised statute necessitated reconsideration. He said that the original vote had taken place with the understanding that Town Meeting would get to express its opinions on the regional school budget directly, and didn’t need to use Article 16 as leverage. He said the reasons to reconsider were to reassure that all voices were heard on the matter, to confirm that the action has its intended consequences – which he would do by moving to resume discussion and vote again at the end of the budget, and to communicate with the other towns in the region to make them understand the seriousness of Amherst’s structural deficit.

The Moderator talked about the technicalities of reconsideration – only someone absent or voting with the majority could move to reconsider; reconsideration puts the body back to the point in time and discussion right before the original vote was taken; and a vote can only be reconsidered once, so it was then or never.

Elaine Brighty, Chair of the Regional School Committee said that one might choose to reconsider for two reasons: on the merits of the article or based on new information. She said the merits of the article didn’t lend themselves to reconsideration because the per pupil assessment method is the most fair option and took much work to achieve. She said the new information amounts to the law being unchanged – approval of the budget by three out of the four towns is binding. She said the Regional School Committee has never voted anything other than a 3% budget, but had considered options for eliminating the second study hall requirement when a 1% budget seemed likely. She said she hoped any new discussion would be on the merits of the article and not on the possibility of using lack of approval as a way to pressure the other towns.

Alice Carlozzi, Chair of the Finance Committee, said that body had no position on reconsideration, but maintained its original position in support of the article. She said that this had been confusing, and that some people may feel frustrated. She said that no one was to blame for the situation and emphasized that other towns in the region had been in the same situation of being bound by a budget they did not want but that the other towns had approved. She said that the fact that it is now Amherst’s turn to be in that position isn’t really so shocking, and that it would be a bad thing to mess with the assessment, considering the history of cooperation among the towns.

Gerry Weiss, Chair of the Select Board, said that he had spoken in support of the previous vote being a pro forma one, and had recommended that people support Article 16 in good conscience, knowing that they could address the budget later. He said that while the circumstances are now different, he still recommended that the article be supported.

A member asked a question about the implications to other towns if we were to reconsider and reject Article 16. Ms. Brighty said their school committees would take it up again, and they would probably have to reconvene their Town Meetings. She said that with teacher contracts in place, and the possibility of creating a different assessment formula that would require towns to fund contracts they couldn’t afford, chaos would result.

In one of the most clear and persuasive opinions I have yet witnessed at Town Meeting, Jim Pistrang spoke against reconsideration, and compared the situation with his experience coaching the self-officiated sport of ultimate Frisbee. He said that if you step out of bounds, you need to call that, even if no one else saw you do it, and said that was easy when you have a big lead, but much harder in a tie game when the stakes are high. He said that the main issue with Article 16 was fairness, and that financial implications were secondary. He said that had been an easy call to make when we thought we could affect the budget later, but that now that we can’t, and now that we have to deal with the financial implications, it is as though our game is tied, and we still need to make the call based on fairness.

There was a question about Town Counsel’s opinion. Town Manager Larry Shaffer said that he agreed that all four towns had to approve the assessment formula and three out of four had to approve the budget. He said that although Pelham had voted on the budget already, they would be considering a Special Town Meeting warrant article about the situation shortly.

A member pointed out that last year two of the towns had contributed money to help pay Amherst’s share of the assessment to ease the transition to the new formula, and that the amount they contributed was pretty close to the amount a 2% assessment would cost us this year. He said that discussion of the budget would be a sham without the assessment formula agreed to, and said that the difficulties of the situation would be compounded if we don’t stick with the previous vote.

Another member said that he supported Jim Pistrang’s position, but also supported reconsideration. He said that there was enough uncertainty to warrant reconsideration, but said that instead of deferring the new vote, we should address it immediately and not use it as a pressure tactic. He said we should confirm our original vote on the fair option – approving the per-pupil assessment formula.

So then it was time to vote. And I voted in favor of reconsideration.

I am absolutely unequivocally in support of the current assessment formula and I am deeply offended by the idea of using it to blackmail the other towns to lower their budget. I know that sentiment is out there, and I know that if the article were to be reconsidered, that would be a risk. But I also think that Town Meeting can only function, such as it does, if everyone feels that the process is fair. If some critical mass of members was feeling that they were tricked or forced into the original Article 16 vote, then that could have a poisonous effect going forward. So I was voting for the integrity of the process, and hoping to reaffirm and strengthen the original vote.

A couple of months ago, when the Select Board was considering its options regarding putting an override question or questions on the ballot, a similar thing happened. After having first voted against two override amounts on the ballot, they then voted for two amounts, following a confusing and convoluted discussion about the smaller amount and whether it was simply a number or a half-baked plan. It was immediately clear that not everyone completely understood or supported what four of them had just voted for. Anne Awad was SB Chair at the time, and had favored two amounts. She knew that reconsidering that vote was all but certain to reverse that outcome. But she did it anyway. I was really impressed by that.

Anyway, I voted for reconsideration, but I was in the minority. The motion to reconsider failed.

Next up: Planning, Conservation and Inspections. The main issue here was that the Select Board was recommending an additional $12,000 for seasonal staff for Puffer’s Pond and its trail maintenance.

The Finance Committee said they had voted at one point to support that extra $12,000, but the new reality of needing to fund the looming regional assessment obligation had them supporting the lower amount instead.

David Ziomek, Conservation Director, said that the Conservation Department has one full-time land manager and one part-time assistant land manager to cover all the Town’s conservation lands and trails. He said seasonal staff addresses the needs of the Puffer’s Pond area at peak summer crowd time.

There were a couple of questions regarding the specifics of the budget numbers and the Town’s liability at Puffer’s.

A member asked about cutting an inspection position and the wisdom of doing that in light of complaints about inspections and permitting from the business community. Mr. Shaffer said that this position had been hard to fill anyway because of the salary attached to it, and said that many improvements are being made to the inspection process. He said the issue is not one of how many inspectors the Town has, but how they provide that service.

Someone asked if the Town could charge fees for inspections to take some of the burden off tax payers. Good idea – such a good idea, in fact, that we already do, and those fees surpass that department’s expenditures.

Once the Select Board formally offered their amendment for the extra $12K, some earlier points were reiterated. One TM member said that the $100,000 general government cut that is being redistributed, including for this proposal, shouldn’t be used for the schools because it is part of the original budget and should be used for regular budget items. He said that the regional assessment money should come from reserves.

Another member stressed fiscal restraint and said that there were enough bad cuts in a 1% budget to provide stuff for everyone to hate. He suggested that the $100K was being treated like found money and he didn’t think that was reason to stray from the 1% budget. He said he questioned the priorities after last week’s line painting recommendation. He said that we should stick with the 1% recommendations or risk dipping into reserves for much bigger sums.

Mr. Weiss said the Select Board did not stray from a 1% budget. He said that it is the policy making body and that the recommendations represent the Select Board’s best guess on policy based on feedback from the community.

A member said he had originally agreed that the amendments were a question of different ways of dividing up the same money, but said that the regional assessment issue changes that because now more money is needed. He said that any of these additions increase the amount that will ultimately need to be taken from the reserves.

Alisa Brewer said she had originally supported the Select Board’s recommendation for this $12K but due to the regional assessment situation, she no longer supports it.

Mr. Weiss said that the key issue with using the $100K for the regional assessment is that it means taking money from the Town budget to give it to the schools.

A member asked if the $12K were approved, would the money necessarily fund the Puffer’s Pond position, or might the Town Manager use the money elsewhere. Mr. Shaffer said that he would be mindful of the Town Meeting vote, but would have to assess the priorities when the entire appropriation process is complete and all the figures are known. He said he would retain the power to move money around as needed.

Someone asked about the implications for this year and future years of not having that staffing. Mr. Ziomek said that the trails at Puffer’s Pond are being “loved to death” and that the area was not designed to accommodate the volume it has now. He said that the cliffs are a particular problem and that when people are doing stuff there that they aren’t supposed to, he calls the police to take care of it.

A member spoke to it being inefficient to use expensive highly-trained police officers to deal with issues that seasonal staff – typically college students – could do very cheaply instead. Regarding Mr. Weiss’ point, he said that shifting money between the Town and the schools would undermine future budgets and make people not trust the budget process.

The vote on this extra $12K went to a tally: 78 Yes, 113 No. I voted No. The subsequent vote on the lower FinCom amount was nearly unanimous.

Community Services. To help with the nomenclature issues of the Community Services budget versus the Community Services line item, we temporarily renamed the line item “human services funding,” which is still a little confusing because it includes not just the money for human service agencies but also a portion of the salary for the Community Services Director. And because all of the Community Service items are individual mini-dramas, (human services funding, LSSE, the pools) we will deal with each separately.

Andy Steinberg spoke to the Finance Committee’s recommendation, the details of which are available in the FinCom Report. He said that it is not a budget that would be recommended if more money were available. Regarding funds for human service agencies, he said it was a practice that started when the Town had more money; that other towns don’t do this; and that the practice is not akin to the State contracting for services it needs to provide to its citizens, but is more like a foundation providing grants. He said that the amount spent here affects the amount that will be available for the upcoming consideration of schools and libraries. He said that just like individuals can’t respond to every envelope or phone call seeking charitable donations, the Town can’t either, and that under the current financial situation, the proposed $25,000 for that purpose is generous and responsible.

Mr. Weiss said that number represents an 82% cut to last year’s funding amount and isn’t fair. He said it impacts the most vulnerable residents and that this funding should be considered one of the main things Amherst does, not an extra. He talked about how the Federal and State government cuts have already hurt these vulnerable populations. He said the extra $41,000 that the Select Board was recommending was also a pitiful funding amount, but that it was the best that they could do.

Isaac BenEzra then offered his recommendation for an extra $117,387, which represents full funding at last year’s level plus 1%. With seven extra minutes granted, he then used his time to let the chair of the Community Development Committee and reps from the affected agencies speak.

With all due respect, I think this kind of thing is a complete waste of time. Everyone spoke about what important work they are doing and how important the Town’s money is to them.

Well, duh!

The work being done by these agencies – and so many other agencies not included in the Town’s human service funding – is crucial to society, locally and on a much larger scale. What they accomplish with the resources they have available warms your heart and blows your mind. To me, that is a given. And entirely beside the point.

So what to make of the intent and effect of this parade of virtue? Was it really meant to persuade people that these agencies are doing good work? Had there been any doubt of that? Worse, were there some Town Meeting members who actually experienced eureka moments and decided to support more money for the agencies because they were now convinced of their worthiness? As in, “I didn’t know the Survival Center was really helping people! Now I’ll support more money for them!” Or “Wow, now I realize the importance of the English language program at Center for New Americans – let’s give them more money!”

That almost certainly happened, and was almost certainly the goal. That is depressing for so many reasons. It means that some Town Meeting members don’t realize or appreciate what these agencies are doing. It means that some Town Meeting members don’t recognize the need to which the agencies are responding. And it means that people elected to make informed and careful decisions are instead voting based on a last-minute whim.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not talking about people who fervently believe that this is an area where the Town should be spending money regardless of our budget situation. That is a wholly defensible position, one with which I respectfully disagree. We can assume that those folks needed no persuading by the agency presentations. We can also assume that the people like me who fervently believe that this is not an area in which the Town can afford to be more generous this year were similarly unaffected by the presentations.

So who is left? Undecideds who either: a) made their decision based on the “new information” that these agencies really are doing important work; and b) worse, made their decision based on finding the presentations “unworthy” of support. If there are a lot of such undecideds, Town Meeting is in big trouble. If there are a few, then that is why I find such presentations to be a waste of time.

It is exactly the same as the grandstanding that happens with other budget areas like public safety, public transportation or the schools. If Town Meeting members need to be convinced of the value of such expenditures with heartwarming or heart-wrenching tales, then we are doomed. Soon our budget will be determined not by economic prudence or fiscal necessity but by which budget area has the best drama coach.

That long aside sums up how the rest of the discussion went. The Community Development Committee also presented its recommendation, which was about half way between that of the Select Board and Mr. BenEzra, adding $88,973 to the Finance Committee’s recommendation. More people chimed in, sometimes eloquently, about why we should or shouldn’t support the different amounts. And eventually we voted. The Select Board’s recommendation prevailed, and I voted against all the amendments and for the Finance Committee’s recommendation.

In my previous post I elaborated on my wacky tally vote encounter. Thanks to all who commented or e-mailed about that. I keep wondering what that might have meant. Was it an attempt to strong-arm my vote? Was it meant to insult or challenge me personally? Was it simply a spontaneous inappropriate remark? We’ll never know. I wonder if she realized that she was targeting someone who transcribes and blogs about the proceedings.

Town Meeting is now crawling along at a glacial pace. We finished Thursday just before 11:00, and we reconvene Monday, June 4th. With the schools. Good grief.

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Debate and debase

I think I would choose a night of foreign policy articles over the human services funding.

The low point of my evening: when a respected member of multiple major town committees came up behind me – I was sitting in the back row – as I was handing in my “No” tally vote card on the first amended amount. She leaned over and said “How long before you’re poor?”

That’s what these kinds of issues do to people.

First of all, Huh? That’s not a discussion – that’s a taunt. Just what we need more of in Town Meeting.

Secondly, and most disturbing, is the idea of voting on something simply as it relates to each of us individually. Does she really mean to suggest that I oppose that funding because I happen to be fortunate enough to not need the services of these agencies? Does that mean that is the basis on which she and others make their votes? If that is true, it does not bode well for Town Meeting.

But going along with that theory sure would simplify my life.

Let’s see. I don’t have any kids, so forget those big bucks for the schools. Police and Fire – well, better safe than sorry. Cherry Hill – yeah, right. LSSE – I have paid for that pottery class many times over. Pools – I don’t think so. Farmland preservation – as long as it’s just for raising vegetables, but not for animals that will be eaten. DPW – what have you done for me lately? Public transportation – I walk. Libraries – I do like those…

That would be a frighteningly negligent way to make decisions. I’ll assume – or hope – that the great majority of the body doesn’t determine its votes like that. But when people allow themselves to get so emotional about the concept of the funding instead of the practicality, the feasibility and the details, then you get this kind of blinding pathos. We see this over and over, where a topic becomes a line in the sand – if you oppose funding a low-ridership bus route, then you don’t support public transportation. If you opposed the override, then you don’t support the schools. If you don’t support funding the human service agencies, then you are cold and heartless. Et cetera. It’s either/or.

During a tally vote, I overheard one member say to another “We need to educate these people. There are a lot of yuppies here.”

More interesting points to ponder. Are you allowed to be classist in one direction but not the other? Imagine the opposite of that sentiment. Would that be OK? And why does anyone think a No vote is disrespecting the agencies or denying the need in our community? Did a single person say anything remotely like that in opposition to the amendments? Of course not.

It’s tiresome really. We are dealing with an issue on which reasonable people can disagree – there is no right or wrong answer. Different people draw their priority lines differently – and often, just barely so. When such specifics are abandoned for moralizing and platitudes, intelligent discussion is lost.

But I guess that only matters if intelligent discussion had been a goal in the first place.

I supported the Finance Committee’s recommendation on the human services funding and I opposed all the amendments. Isaac BenEzra’s amendment to increase the Finance Committee’s $25,000 recommendation by $117,387 failed in a tally vote of 70 to 110. The Community Development Committee’s amendment to add $88,873 to the FinCom amount failed in a tally vote of 75 to 102. The Select Board’s recommendation to add $41,000 passed in a tally vote of 114 to 63.

More happened at this meeting, but I’ll deal with it in another post. Had to work through this annoyance tonight so that my weary brain could sleep.

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A matter of priorities

No time for the whole play-by-play, so we’re just hitting the highlights here.

From the Moderator: TMCC election winners: Harry Brooks, Carol Gray, and Judy Simpson. Also: with the close margin for Monday’s tally vote, which had first appeared to be 95 to 98 and later turned out to be 97 to 98, recounts will now be automatic when the count is so close – within 5% or so.

A procedural motion was approved to consider the Elementary and Regional School budgets on June 4th because the Superintendent won’t be available next Thursday. As if we’d get to that part Thursday.

Public Safety. Kay Moran of the Finance Committee moved to appropriate $7,891,970, of which $6,386,180 would come from taxation and $1,505,790 would come from ambulance receipts. She spoke to how tough it was to recommend a budget with so many cuts, particularly the loss of the two police officer positions that were added two years ago, reducing that staff from 50 to 48. She said the new Mutual Aid Agreement with UMass was a good thing, but wouldn’t solve the problem of being understaffed, especially on busy nights when both departments have their hands full at the same time. She said that all five firefighter positions funded with the SAFER grant were expected to be kept, and explained that UMass currently pays about $80,000 for fire services, about $180,000 for ambulance services which are figured on some kind of per student basis, and $160,000 payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) from the State. She said that even before the recently announced administrative changes at UMass, the Finance Committee wasn’t counting on new money there.

The Select Board supported the Finance Committee’s recommendation.

There were also two amendments to the Finance Committee’s recommendation. Stan Gawle recommended $8,042,046, for about an additional $150,000, with that extra money coming from the capital budget. Eva Schiffer recommended $7,991,970, with the extra $100,000 coming from the $100,000 that had been cut from general government on Monday. These amendments came up later, but since I’m trying to streamline this summary, I’m putting them out there now.

The Chief said he had been on the Amherst Police force almost 38 years, and been Chief for the last 8 years. He spoke of his early priorities to have the department accredited, which means that every rule and action is written down so people are held accountable; and to put the department in the forefront of racial profiling awareness, which he also accomplished. He spoke of all the cuts the department has had to bear in the last couple of years, particularly to the valuable community policing programs. He said the loss of two officers would affect the busy 7:00 p.m. – 3:00 a.m. “band-aid” shift that he employs on busy weekends, as well as the day shift, which will likely drop from three to two officers on duty. He said that would leave one officer to respond to nuisance calls and the other dedicated to emergency calls, and said that arrangement could lead to situations where no officer is available to respond to a call. He also addressed the illogical nonsense that keeps being repeated about the force always being a couple members short due to officers being in training or injured, and how that proves they can absorb a staff cut. Um, because if there are fewer officers, that won’t happen anymore? I would love to have this “reasoning” explained. No doubt it would fall into the latter half of the “dazzle them with brilliance or baffle them with _____” option.

In response to questions, the Chief gave special recognition to Rick Fuller, the Police Station’s solo maintenance and custodial person, whose responsibilities had been recommended to be spread among three people, and unsurprisingly requires some overtime; and Carol Hepburn, the Animal Welfare Officer, who has expanded the position dramatically beyond the mandated dog officer duties and refuses to put in for overtime.

The discussion on public safety followed the predictable path. We got the dual perennial complaints about the colleges not paying the Town enough and the Town not utilizing the colleges’ police enough. And this doozy: the threats in Amherst aren’t as bad as they are being portrayed because the main thing the Police do is hassle college and high school students about trivial matters.

On the other side, people spoke to how great and necessary the police are, what tough jobs they have, how quickly they respond and how understaffed the department is.

One member offered suggestions for “thinking outside the box” with how policing happens in the Town and State, and referenced how Maryland uses State Police instead of local police departments, which removes jurisdictional concerns. Another warned of the potential for the Town to be sued – perhaps by him – if something bad happens in the wake of our cutting officers, when YouTube has made us vividly aware of the rampaging student threat.

This is basically a pro forma annual discussion where talk of the importance of the Police Department only needs to happen in order to counter Amherst’s weird hippy-hangover, question authority, oppose anything vaguely military bent. In most towns, Public Safety probably doesn’t need to be justified, and the necessity of police officers probably goes without saying. But this is not most towns.

When we got to the vote, the extra $150K amendment with funds taken from capital was soundly defeated and I voted No. The amendment to add the $100,000 cut from general government, with the reasoning that it was next in line on the Town Manager’s priority list, went to a tally vote, which was defeated, 60 Yes, 133 No. I voted Yes. I didn’t feel strongly about this. Basically, I’m supporting the Finance Committee’s recommendations, but that extra $100K has to go somewhere, and to me, there are only three reasonable options: Public Safety, the regional assessment or reserves. So I would just as soon take it off the table now before people start spending it on their own pet priorities. Alas.

So the Finance Committee’s recommendation of $7,891,970 was the third vote, and it was approved overwhelmingly, and I voted Yes.

Then we got to the highlight of the evening. I don’t think the points I made in the Fussbudget post could have been more vividly illustrated.

Yes, the Public Works budget.

Doug Slaughter of the Finance Committee moved to appropriate $1,690,501. He noted that this was a reduction of 2.7% from FY07 and included five fewer full-time-equivalent staff positions.

Anne Awad of the Select Board said that that body would be recommending that an additional $10,000 be added to that figure to fund line painting.

And that’s really where things got interesting.

There were a few questions about snow and ice and this and that, but then someone asked about the line painting that was clearly being done already.

DPW Superintendent Guilford Mooring said that all the center lines had been done and that the edge lines were almost done, and that 8-10 crosswalks were getting painted each night. He said little painting was done last year due to a contract snafu with the company that handles the center and edge lines. But now – yep, pretty much taken care of.

Gerry Weiss noted that this was a little embarrassing for the Select Board, and said they were told that there would be no painting without the extra $10,000.

Mr. Mooring, in his exceedingly earnest and honest manner, said that there were probably better places to put that $10,000 than the Public Works budget, and noted that his budget was tight and he could use the money, but that line painting wasn’t his top priority. His top priority was labor.

It wasn’t his top priority. Imagine. The guy who runs the department had a handle on how the line painting thing was going, and had other more pressing needs.

Lesson: If you believe more DPW service is needed, you should look to increase that budget, but not decide how it should be spent. Knowing and prioritizing the departmental needs is what managers are for. If you don’t agree with how they do that, that would be a performance issue, not a budget issue.

This is why I oppose all the Select Board budget recommendations, and similar arbitrary amendments. I think that kind of interference disrespects the process of creating the budget, and the staff whose job it is to know and manage their individual areas of responsibility.

So I object to the Select Board having taken this tack at all, but this particular faux pas wasn’t their fault. At the April 9th Select Board meeting, the members were championing their personal favorite restorations for funding in case the override were to pass. (Only Ms. Greeney had the good sense to not indulge herself that way.) When the subject of line painting was raised, and it was specifically asked if that might be done quickly with unspent snow money, the Town Manager said that he had corresponded by e-mail with Mr. Mooring, and said that between FY07 and FY08 funds, “We have sufficient money to do the line painting.” At the May 14th meeting, where the Board was formulating its 1% budget recommendations and that was inquired about again, Mr. Shaffer said “We need the appropriation to achieve that.” When Mr. Weiss asked for clarification, Mr. Shaffer said “We need the additional funds.”

I don’t really know what to make of that. I do know that Guilford Mooring’s candor cost him ten thousand bucks, and I surely hope that was all it cost him.

Ultimately, the Select Board did not offer its amendment, and the Finance Committee’s recommended appropriation of $1,690,501 passed overwhelmingly.

We adjourned just after 10:00 p.m. I hope somebody bought Guilford a beer.

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Budgeting our time

Things got underway late, you know, what with the bomb scare and all.

You didn’t hear about that?

Apparently, at the end of the school day, there was some kind of bomb report/rumor at the Middle School, and such things aren’t taken lightly these days. Emergency people were still checking the building when I arrived a little before 6:30 for the Select Board meeting. Things got cleared up in time for that meeting to start at 6:45, without any ACTV as there was no time to set that up. Kudos to Sean Kinlin and his crew and the Town IT folks and whomever else is part of making the Town Meeting broadcast happen, because they had to cram those arrangements into a much-condensed time last night.

So Town Meeting got underway at 7:50. I don't actually know that the residual effects of that incident contributed to the late start, but I couldn't resist it as a juicy blog intro.

The Moderator started with announcements: TMCC voting was taking place at the rear of the auditorium, members should sign up for the TMCC mailing list (send an e-mail to TMCC@amherstma.gov to do so) and then recognized School Superintendent Jere Hochman for an announcement.

This poor guy. Just when you think the other shoe has dropped, the schools sprout another foot.

So sure enough, Dr. Hochman explains that the infamous change to the State law about all towns in a region now needing to approve the regional schools’ budget rather than the 2/3 majority previously required – mmm yeah, not so sure about that any more. The Department of Education says the rule change wasn’t meant to have the new interpretation. Town Counsel is trying to reach the DoE Counsel, and what happens next is anyone’s guess. Stayed tuned for Wednesday, when we find out that Leverett never officially became part of the region, and that Hadley is staging a hostile takeover bid for the High School. Glad I’m not on the School Committee.

It was then time to start the budget. Except that it wasn’t, because the Select Board wanted to meet with the Moderator somewhere behind the curtain, so we took a ten minute break. As a faithful scribe of Select Board meetings, I had a fleeting notion to go back there to see what that was all about, but frankly, you just don’t pay me enough for that. However, if anyone who was part of that pow-wow would like to fill the rest of us in, we’d be most appreciative.

So the Red Sox game was projected on the auditorium screen instead (YAY!!!) where the Yankees were killing Wakefield, and we were down 0-4 (BOO!!!) It was just that kind of a night.

When the meeting resumed, Gerry Weiss, Select Board Chair, talked about the many hours the Select Board had spent considering the budget details and how their recommendations differ from those of the Finance Committee by a small amount, and that those changes total 7/10ths of 1% of the general fund budget. He said that Town Meeting was facing several choices – to accept the Town Manager’s/Finance Committee’s budget, to accept the budget with the Select Board’s small modifications, to increase the budget as Town Meeting sees fit with such increases contingent on an override, or to have a rancorous debate about making further cuts to one area in order to add that money somewhere else. He urged no further cuts.

Alice Carlozzi, Finance Committee Chair, gave a long statement about the need for a multi-year financial plan and how the FY08 budget will be the foundation of that, and how this will be a transition year. She urged adopting a 1% budget with no use of reserves, with the possible exception of the regional school assessment, once that situation gets clarified. She said that some people doubt that a multi-year plan can succeed, but she believes it can because all parties are working for the good of the town. She said the reserves must be safeguarded for emergencies, to protect the bond rating and so that necessary funds are available when the next inevitable economic downturn happens. She stressed the importance of not reducing the capital spending and said that we had strayed far enough already from the goal of dedicating 10% of the levy for that purpose. She said that the Finance Committee disagrees with the Select Board’s cut to General Government funding and the redistribution of that money to Public Works, Conservation, and Community Services, and said the FinCom also doesn’t support the SB’s and Library’s recommendation that the Libraries keep $19,000 in overdue fines that have previously gone into the general fund. She said the FinCom expects Town Meeting to make amendments and respects its right to do so, but urged restraint.

Brian Morton of the Finance Committee gave a presentation about historic growth and depletion of reserves, and capital spending trends. It was tough for me to pay attention to this and take sufficient notes to summarize it. I hope he and Alice might make their presentations available on the Town web site.

Here’s my inadequate summary: our reserves are at their lowest point in 13 years, supplemental lottery aid is not available to help grow them, appropriating money into them isn’t looking too likely, and all that makes the prospect of taking additional money from them even more dire. They had been allowed to grow significantly during good times, they were vital for cushioning the blow during bad times, and now that we’re no longer in bad times and State aid is increasing we can’t keep using them or the next bad time will be a disaster. He said that recessions tend to happen once every ten years and that we are well into that cycle now and unprepared. He said reserves had once totaled 62% of State aid but were now at 18%, and he talked about Moody’s downgrading the Town’s bond rating if reserves fall below 5% of general fund revenue. He talked about capital spending and how 10% of the levy had been the goal, but we’re now budgeted for only 7% for FY08, an amount he called dangerously low. He talked about how costly it was in financial and service terms the last time capital spending was reduced and delayed in the early 90s, and an override was needed to replace a fire truck. He said that delayed capital spending is an override waiting to happen.

The Moderator said that Town Meeting’s desire to comment and ask questions on each budget line and the body’s ability to amend the different amounts tended to get in the way of each other, and that he wanted to preserve both. He created a new procedure for how budget amendments would work, in order to accomplish that. I won’t summarize the procedure, but it’s available here.

Two members spoke to how they felt the new procedure violated the rules of Town Meeting. It felt more like they were reacting to some kind of perceived bias the new procedure might impart, and I can’t even fathom a way that could happen. We do see this kind of paranoia about the Moderator every so often.

After the various objections had been duly noted, the Finance Committee made its recommendation – $5,855,139 for general government. Kay Moran of the Finance Committee talked about the various departments and responsibilities that fall under this budget category, and rather than summarize it all, I refer you to page 21 of the Finance Committee Report. She noted that the FinCom had voted 7-0 to stick with this recommendation rather than adopting the Select Board’s recommendation to reduce funding to this area by $100,000.

Gerry Weiss said that the SB’s $100,000 cut was recommended in order to use that money to fund other things, which he said would be discussed in more depth eventually. (Read more about that in the Select Board’s recommendations.)

A Town Meeting member said everyone had to live within a 1% budget increase except for the funding to the human service agencies, which was cut from $140,000 last year to a proposed $25,000 this year. He said the most vulnerable among us were taking the biggest hit, and that he wanted them to be treated like everyone else.

This sounds like a good argument, but it is actually specious. The 1% increase didn’t apply at the departmental or line-item level, but to each of the Town, School and Library budget totals. Many departments had cuts large and small, though none as large percentage-wise as the human services cut.

Another member wanted employee benefit costs clarified. Another asked why legal services spending always goes over budget. Town Manager Larry Shaffer said that legal services used to be billed at an hourly rate, but that the RFP for a new Town Counsel seeks fixed rate billing for everything except litigation. He said he was confident this would reduce legal services spending and keep it within budget this year.

Someone else asked what the Human Rights department does, and Mr. Shaffer explained that it has previously instituted the policies of the Human Rights Committee and investigated Human Rights complaints. He said it has now been combined with Human Resources, and while the Human Rights Director would continue with her previous responsibilities, her focus would now be on human rights as they apply to hiring and training within the Town.

A member asked if funding for an Economic Development Director was included. Mr. Shaffer said no, without the override he would have had to cut other Town positions to make room for that now, which he wasn’t willing to do. He said he hopes bring back a new proposal to fund that next year. Another member asked if the Town Manager had the authority to reassign money for that if he wanted to, and Mr. Shaffer said yes.

How many people in the Human Rights/Human Resources Department? Three. Will I.T. spending continue at high levels? Yes. Hwei-Ling Greeney noted that productivity from new technology never seems to result in savings from a decreased workforce, and that cuts to things people care about continue. Why the big reduction in the election budget? Only two elections are scheduled for next year, while there were three this year.

Sy Friedman offered an amendment to the General Government budget, seeking to appropriate $5,950,753, with $95,614 of that amount contingent on an override.

Someone questioned the ability of Town Meeting to make contingent appropriations, but was assured by a FinCom member and the Finance Director that that ability is explicit through Proposition 2 ½, and detailed in this publication.

Mr. Friedman said he would be offering many similar amendments but would only speak about it once. He said he had only opposed two overrides since becoming a Town Meeting member in 1984, and that he did so both times because he thinks an override prior to Town Meeting usurps the body’s budget powers. He didn’t like the three-year plan that went along with the May 1st override because there was no way to enforce new members of TM or the Select Board to stick with that plan next year or the year after, and he didn’t like that it sought to collect more in taxes than was needed in year one and bank the rest. He said he is willing to have an override to keep Town and School services at a more reasonable 3% level, but wants the override vote to occur after TM. He said his amendments provide for that 3% funding.

Gerry Weiss then offered the Select Board’s recommendation that had already been discussed: $5,755,139. He said it was doable, and the Town Manager had agreed to it, and asked Mr. Shaffer to speak to that.

The Town Manager said that with expected reductions in legal services spending and collective bargaining progressing as it is, he said he could live within this budget and was happy to recommend it. With that, Gerry removed his heel from Larry’s instep.

Oh relax. It’s a joke.

Kay Moran reiterated her point about the FinCom sticking with its own recommendation and said its members are skeptical about the Town Manager’s ability to deal with a $100,000 cut to that budget.

A couple of people asked about whether Amherst might join the State’s health insurance program. The Town Manager and Finance Director said that every opportunity for flexibility and savings is being considered, and touched on how ongoing collective bargaining negotiations prevent too much from being said on that, and outlined recent cost-saving changes to the Town’s program.

Someone asked that recurring question about three-year overrides and one-year overrides and what that all means, and whether you revert to the original levy afterwards. John Musante gave a good explanation of the how the three-year plan would have been funded by the $2.5 million dollar override, but I think the direct answer may have gotten lost in all that detail.

In case anyone reading this is still confused by the concept, I would be remiss if I didn’t explain this. The kind of override we’ve been talking about is a permanent increase to the tax levy. If we had approved the $2.5 million override, that amount would be added to the levy and never be removed. The terms “one-year” and “three-year” refer to how long that money is intended to sustain us before another override is needed. A one-year override only raises enough money to get us to next year, and then we’ll either have to make more big cuts or have another override (unless, magic money really does start raining down from the sky, as some are predicting…) and the three-year override was intended to fund its accompanying plan for three years, at which point another override might have been needed – but initiatives to make the plan last beyond three years without an override were a key part of the plan.

Back to Town Meeting…

A member made a stirring plea to the body to think in terms of what the Town wants as a whole, and not just what each of us want as individuals. She said she can’t afford a house in Amherst but was willing to live in an apartment forever if the budgets requiring high taxes are for the greater good of the town she loves.

A member said that if an override were to be held in the summer, much of our electorate is gone during those months, and that would skew the vote. I don’t really know what that means. If that is referring to students, that concept just isn’t supported by the voting data – it’s extraordinary how few people under the age of about 40 are voting at all in Amherst. If it refers to the general non-student population going away on vacation, that is a little questionable to me. Even if a huge percentage of the Town does go away in the summer, it’s not like they’re all gone at the same time. Some tiny subset might be gone for the whole summer, but most people probably go away for a week or two, and those weeks would be spread out. And as Mr. Weiss noted during a Select Board discussion on the topic – people can always vote absentee.

A member said the main difference between the Select Board’s and Finance Committee’s recommendations was how the process of budget creation was viewed. He said that a long time is spent trying to estimate as well as possible what amount would be needed for each budget area. He said that making a $100,000 cut to one area on the rationale that its particular budget is big enough to absorb it, in order to redistribute that money to other areas, was a bad practice. And he said of course the Town Manager said he could live within that budget – what else can he say?

Mr. Weiss disagreed with the characterization of how the Select Board made the recommended cut and said that things change over the course of the budget process and that the Select Board had discussed with the Town Manager where the money they wanted to spend elsewhere could be found. That isn’t quite how I recall the process, but what do I know?

So then the question was called. An angry murmur rippled through the crowd. A couple of people raised points of order about how this procedure didn’t allow for discussion about how that cut money would be redistributed in other parts of the budget, and that people would be voting without that important information. The Moderator said that people certainly could talk about how they wanted such money redistributed.

The voice vote on calling the question was considered too close to call, so it went to a standing vote. A two-thirds majority is needed for that motion. The standing vote was 138 Yes and 54 No. I voted No. It seemed to me that some people were clearly upset by the new procedure, and they sure weren’t going to be any happier if they felt that they got railroaded into a vote without adequate discussion. I didn’t share their concerns about the procedure or the adequacy of the discussion, but I was more than willing to have more discussion if that was what they wanted. But the motion passed, so we came to an immediate vote.

Because of that wacky “vote the higher number first” thing, we started with Mr. Friedman’s amendment for $5,950,753, with the $95K being contingent on an override. That was defeated pretty soundly by voice vote.

Next up: the Finance Committee’s $5,855,139 figure. Too close. Tally vote. Whoa. My notes say that the results had been 95 Yes, 98 No, but the results on the Town site say 97 Yes, 98 No. And in those results, there’s a surprise or two. Or one. The Finance Committee’s recommendation apparently wasn’t quite sustainable. I voted Yes.

So almost by default, that means the Select Board’s recommendation of $5,755,139 prevailed, but to make it official, we voted on that too. On the slight chance and fascinating possibility that it didn’t pass and we had to – what? – start all over again? – I voted No, but only a handful of us spleeny types did.

This session adjourned at 10:15. But now the real fun begins. What happens going forward? Does one simply concede and go along with the rest of the Select Board’s recommendation, or at least $100K’s worth? Do we say: OK, you don’t need that money for General Government – let’s put it in reserves? Will this new-found fortune ultimately fund the continuing saga of the regional assessment? Or was this just the first tweaking of a budget that will morph into something completely unrecognizable? Time will tell.


Trivia, courtesy of my data guru husband:

Last night’s attendance (218) was the highest since 4/27/05, which was the opening session of the 2005 TM. There were 219 there that night, which is the highest total since online records are available back in 2002.

The number voting on the budget question (195) was also the second-highest tally-vote total in history, surpassed only by the 201 votes cast on the failed motion on 6/22/05 to rescind the Plum Brook funding.

Do your own voting and attendance analysis with the inAmherst.com Tally Vote Database which contains up-to-date information on attendance figures and tally vote results through the 5/21/07 meeting.

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Fussbudget

Imagine a young person just out of college: first job, shoebox apartment, eating a lot of rice as she tries to make the entry-level salary cover life’s start-up costs. Now imagine her mom, worried and well-intentioned, deciding that the stress of it all is not good for the daughter, so she gives her a gift certificate for the works at a fancy day spa. Now the daughter would love to have these relaxing spa treatments – who wouldn’t, after all? – but more than that, she really could have used that money. If Mom had really wanted to help her out, she would have just given her the gift certificate money to apply to her own priorities as needed.

That’s how I feel about budget amendments at Town Meeting.

This is an illustration, not an etiquette lesson, so never mind that the daughter should just be grateful for the gift.

When someone from the floor of Town Meeting moves to add back funds for X, Y or Z in any of the budget areas, they are not respecting the funding priorities of that area. Sure, the Town Manager would love to be able to open the pool and the schools would love to bring back the Ecobus, but unless such items are next in line on their funding priority lists, insisting on those expenditures amounts to meddling.

“But Town Meeting represents the priorities of the citizens!”

Well, first of all, the whole structure of Town government represents the priorities of the citizens – as a whole, if not as individuals.

And secondly, individuals are always going to get worked up about something sexy like the pool or the Ecobus – there’s no such thing as a rallying cry of support for the boring but vital nitty-gritty elements of administration. That’s why we need the Town Manager, the Superintendent, and the Library Director – it is their job to know the big picture of their departmental priorities better than anyone else in town, and we should respect that.

The big-picture part is key. These people are responsible for serving and balancing the needs and wants of the entire town, and not merely the loudest or the most eloquent Town Meeting members.

I am inclined to defer to the experts. I believe that no one understands the complexities of the Town’s revenues and expenses better than the Finance Director and the Finance Committee. Ditto for the Town Manager, the schools, the Public Transportation Committee, etc. in their respective domains. That labor and knowledge is divided into different areas for very practical purposes – we can’t all know everything about everything. Why do we think the little that we each do know about any given area has more value than the vast amounts of knowledge held by the committee or official dedicated to it?

I expect to be voting for the 1% budget with the Finance Committee’s recommendations.

Bear in mind that the Finance Committee didn’t determine how the money would be spent, only how much was available for spending.

I accept that a 1% budget will be painful and will entail cuts to a lot of important services. To me, there was only one good way to avoid this, and that was with the override and the three-year plan. I feel that taking money from reserves or seeking a smaller override to simply meet this year’s needs perpetuates the cycle of delaying rather than addressing our fiscal problems.

I have heard powerful arguments to justify both, but I am not persuaded. I think working toward a larger override next year is our best short- and long-term option, and I believe that a small override this year dramatically reduces the chances of that passing. There is no guarantee for next year, obviously, but I think we need to take the best steps we can now to help make that happen. A small override this year, on top of last year’s CPA tax increase, feeds the perception that “we’re always voting to raise our taxes.” We must be judicious in going to the voters, and I think we tried this year and failed, and now need to look ahead.

So those are my sentiments going into the budget articles, and my expectations for how I will vote. But you never know. Like they say in sports about the folly of predicting an outcome based on what is known about the teams beforehand: “That’s why they play the game.”

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