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Ashland’s Board of Selectmen (BOS) at their Feb. 3 meeting voted, 5-0, on the final format and wording for Prop 2 ½ override ballot questions. The questions, which have been approved by the state Department of Revenue, will be presented to residents at the May 4 town meeting and the May 17 town election. The questions are:
Shall the Town of Ashland be allowed to assess an additional $1,943,400 in real estate and personal property taxes for the purposes of funding the school and general government operating budgets for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2016?
YES _________ NO_________
Shall the Town of Ashland be allowed to assess an additional $500,000 in real estate and personal property taxes for the purposes of funding the Community and Economic Development Infrastructure stabilization fund for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2016?
YES _________ NO_________
What is an Override?
An override increase is a permanent increase to the usual tax increase for that tax year and for all future years. Ashland has never passed a permanent override at the ballot box. However, the town has passed many temporary debt exclusions for projects, such as the new high school, the town hall renovation, the library addition, the new school roofs and the new community center. (Read more, “Understanding Prop 2 ½ and Overrides,” Oct. 1, 2015 issue of Ashland Local Town Pages.)
“The Override Study Committee (OSC) recommendation to the BOS (http://tinyurl.com/hfrsvla) was a two-tiered approach,” Steve Mitchell, OSC chair and BOS member, said. “I separated out capital funding and provided an alternative proposal for OSC review. The reason for doing this was to take away confusion around the tiered approach, to simplify the questions to Yes or No, and to separate out economic and community development projects, such as a public safety building and infra structure improvements downtown and on Rt. 126, from the general operational budget.”
Groups Promoting
an Override
“We do fund these things, but we don’t fund enough,” Mitchell explained. “That money would be dedicated for these uses. The OSC was unified in the total list of needs, except how to break up the amounts and present it to the community.”
“The override is part of our financial plan for the next five years,” Mitchell said. “If it doesn’t pass, there will be cuts and the inability to do desirable things. We have to evaluate the types of services and programs we want.”
“The average income for a household in Ashland is $102,000, according to a [Dec. 18, 2015] Boston Globe article (http://tinyurl.com/guzg3ek). There are more high income earners in Ashland than ever before,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell encourages residents to see the Visual Budget tool on the town website to find out where their tax dollars are going.
Town management and the advocacy group Yes for Ashland (http://yesforashland.org) are mounting a robust campaign to promote the override by holding rallies and coffees for residents and speaking to town groups in the next couple of months.
Some Residents Say No
Retired engineer and a resident of Ashland for over 30 years, Philip Ilsley said in an interview that he is not afraid to speak up, especially on behalf of the seniors in town. “I support the schools, but you can’t keep throwing money at them. The percent of our taxes that goes to the schools is outrageous. You can’t just keep adding to the taxes. This will definitely hurt the seniors. There are an awful lot of seniors that aren’t in good financial shape; most of them are hurting plenty.”
Ilsley believes that there has to be another answer for making the schools strong. “We used to be number one in education in the world; now we are not anywhere near the top,” Ilsley said.
Working as a management consultant, with a background as a project manager in industry, and relatively new to town, Stephen Morgan serves on the Capital Improvement Committee (CIC), a standing advisory committee established by town bylaw.
“I have been following the override since the first meetings last summer,” Morgan said. “Town management, however, has never involved the CIC, has left us out of the process despite requests for inclusive participation. The OSC, for example, has never discussed with us a need for an additional unspecified $500,000 per year to fund capital projects. What will be provided to the town for this figure remains undefined. The town manager is also a member of CIC, and this has never been on our agenda for discussion or voted on by CIC.”
Morgan is concerned that the OSC has not focused on or come up with “a single new cost-saving item or proposal to balance the FY17 budget without need for an override. Everything instead appears to be new spending. The proposal for capital should not recommend creation of yet another capital stabilization account when one was just created at the spring town meeting in 2015,” he said.
“I do not recommend voters support the proposed override. I form this conclusion for two main reasons:
1.) This large multi-million dollar proposal includes an undefined capital increase of $500,000 per year, forever. With a current capital budget of $750,000 this represents a 67 percent increase. The planned use of these tax dollars is completely undefined at this time and was not vetted with CIC before the spending was recommended for the ballot.
2.) Based on my participation at several meetings on this subject, it is clear that town officials have continually misinformed the actual budget figures at public forums. Originally stating there was a ‘structural deficit’ with a need in 2017 for over $1 million. This figure is now reported at a recent finance committee meeting as perhaps $100K. It is notable that FY15, which closed on June 30, 2015, generated a large free cash figure which could/should be used for ongoing FY16 and FY17 shortfall if one actually materializes.”
Terry Hendrix, an Ashland homeowner for over 40 years and the former commissioner for Ashland Water and Sewer, explained in an email several reasons for not supporting an override: “Including capital items in a Prop 2 ½ override is improper since it permanently increases the town’s tax levy rather than having the debt over several years in a debt exclusion. There are many people in Ashland just getting by or not getting by on small wages or fixed incomes. Passing an increase in taxes that are already high by local standards will cause new potential Ashland residents to go elsewhere.”
He concluded, “Most Ashland residents have to make wise spending choices every day. Ashland should tighten its belt a bit more and not have an override.”