Towns face tough decisions in wake of override vetoes
Are we about to relive some 1980s “nostalgia” that those of a certain age would sooner forget?
For municipal and school department employees, those halcyon days were anything but.
Proposition 2½, which Massachusetts enacted in 1982, limits the amount of revenue a community can raise from property taxes annually to 2.5% above the previous year’s total, in addition to the value of new economic activity.
Only by overriding that 2.5% increase cap can a community circumvent that law.
Facing inflationary pressures two or three times that Prop 2½ limit, some area communities have asked their residents to do just that.
The first results of those efforts locally don’t bode well for additional financial relief.
Voters in Groton and Dunstable soundly rejected a proposed Proposition 2½ tax override, leaving their Select Boards and the Groton-dunstable Regional School Committee facing hard choices with a June 30 deadline to have fiscal 2025 budgets approved.
“There was no ambiguity about the override vote,” Groton Select Board Chair Peter Cunningham told the newspaper.
The Prop 2½ overrides were defeated soundly in both communities, with five times as many voters participating than in past annual spring elections.
Voter interest was evident by the overwhelming turnout for Groton’s March 26 Town Meeting, which forced officials to postpone that event due to the larger-than-anticipated attendance. More than 900 residents came out to vote on the Proposition 2½ override.
In the special elections held April 2, the vote in Groton was 8,960 against the override to 3,834 in favor. Voter turnout was nearly 43% of those registered. In Dunstable, the vote was closer, but the nays still prevailed, 648 to 520. Voter turnout was 47% of those registered.
If it had been approved, Groton’s tax limit would have increased by $5.5 million over three years and Dunstable’s by nearly $2.1 million.
Following the two override defeats, both towns have some difficult decisions to make. Much depends on what the regional school committee decides.
Superintendent of Schools Laura Chesson acknowledged that voters had a “difficult decision” to make in the special elections. “People have different pressures on their lives,” the superintendent said.
Chesson added, “But now there will be very significant reductions. Many teachers and other staff will be let go. It’s not a one-year problem.”
Cunningham, speaking at a special meeting of the Groton Select Board, Finance Committee and the regional school committee, said the funding deficits will carry over into succeeding years and won’t be limited to the school side of the towns’ budgets.
“We’re pretty much at the limit of what we can cut for services,” he said.
Some participants suggested the towns try asking voters to approve smaller overrides, but Cunningham disagrees. “There is an upper limit to what people are willing to pay,” he said.
“(The override) was a big ask,” Cunningham said.
Both towns must now recalculate their budget requests and present them to their respective Town Meetings for approval. It’s a tight timeline due to waiting periods built into the process.
First, the regional school committee needs to review its budget and determine where to make cuts, and then let both town select boards know their assessments. Groton’s on the hook for about 77% of the assessment and Dunstable 23%, according to Cunningham.
Had the special election votes succeeded, the overrides would still have needed Town Meeting approvals, but that’s now a moot point.
Groton and Dunstable aren’t the only communities in a financial bind. Other area towns associated with regional school districts have asked for additional aid through overrides.
They include Acton and Boxboro, as well as the North Middlesex Regional School District communities of Pepperell and Townsend. Westford’s also looking for an override for fiscal 2025, while Dracut may go to the voters for an override in fiscal 2026.
The NMRSD stated it has asked communities for an additional $3 million for next fiscal year’s budget, an amount it needs to cover increases in health insurance and collective bargaining among other items, all compounded by the lack of corresponding increases in state aid.
The District adopted a fiscal 2025 budget that’s a 6.27% increase over the prior fiscal year.
There’s no reason to believe the results of the other upcoming overrides will differ from the Groton and Dunstable results.
As the Groton-dunstable school superintendent mentioned, residents in the member communities — many on fixed incomes — also must deal with the same inflationary pressures, and there’s no one lending them a financial helping hand.
If school districts had only used their federal COVID relief funds for filling one-time needs — and not on personnel or programs that rely on recurring sources of income — their budget shortfalls may have been more manageable.
But with inflation still well above pre-pandemic levels, coupled with a state education funding formula that no longer compensates districts for inflation-caused budget shortfalls, school systems and municipal governments may likely reprise the financial pain initially caused by Proposition 2½’s passage back in the 1980s.