Towns turn to fees for revenue

Menu-style options sometimes divisive

Expecting that many voters will shun tax-limit overrides in a time of recession, some communities in this area are shifting to pay-as-you-go services, and charging new or higher fees to support what was once considered the basic business of government.

One community is considering user self-funding for its library, senior center, and other services, while another is starting an all-day kindergarten financed largely by parents. Officials elsewhere are eyeing menus of new and higher fees to help close looming budget gaps.

"Depending on the community, it's definitely coming to a crisis point," said Thomas Scott, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, whose members are juggling rising costs, many with flatlined funding. "If you're not a crisis community, you probably will be, in short order."

Nerves are fraying as local officials try to make the choice between fees or higher taxes to pay mounting bills that are outrunning revenues. The soaring costs include fuel, healthcare, pensions, and special education; revenues, meanwhile, are suffering from the slowed economy and flat state aid.

In Tewksbury, officials are considering making the Senior Center, high school sports, and the public library self-funding, instead of seeking a Proposition 2 1/2 override to pump taxes up to the level needed to run the services. The town is also considering an annual $215-per-household, trash-removal fee for the first time.

"I don't think people are happy about it," Selectwoman Anne Marie Stronach said last week.

Tewksbury faces an estimated $10.7 million deficit over the next three years. Residents have voted down overrides in the past, and could face one for $5.3 million this year to avoid the new fees, which could go before Town Meeting, starting May 5.

The choice between a tax hike and fees can crack a community along fault lines, setting families with schoolchildren against residents who have no children and are opposed to paying higher property taxes to support local schools. Sometimes the schools lose out.

"One of the unfortunate things about [school] fees is that they really are a tax that's paid only by parents, so they're not as controversial with the general public, and there isn't as much of a backlash against raising fees," said Thomas Diaz, chairman of the Lexington School Committee.

Diaz said an override is not an option this year for Lexington. Local officials believe voters would not approve of higher taxes after the town passed sizable overrides in the previous two years, he said. Also, after many school fees went up last year, they will stay level this year.

But the schools will charge an annual per-child fee of $1,025 for a new all-day kindergarten program, Diaz said.

Although the program will offer a sliding scale to low-income families, Diaz acknowledged that the size of the fee might discourage some middle-income parents from applying.

"We're very unhappy about having to charge a fee, but it struck us as the best way to get started," he said.

Lexington's full-day kindergarten fee is low compared with the fee in Arlington, now at $1,800 and expected to rise next year to $2,400, according to the office of Superintendent of Schools Nate Levenson. But even in Arlington, parents who need the service might see public kindergarten as easier to shoulder than some private programs.

"With the cost of private day care being so high - some people paying more for child care than a mortgage - the Arlington cost seems reasonable to me, especially if it means that the town is able to continue running a full-day program instead of just a morning-only program," said David Valdes Greenwood, who said he has considered a preschool for his daughter that costs $1,500 a month.

In Chelmsford, officials facing a $2.8 million budget deficit are considering instituting for the first time what many other communities already tap as a revenue source - a school bus fee. The $200-per-child transportation charge would be on top of recent hikes in fees for sports and extracurricular activities.

That's if local voters turn down an override vote scheduled for April 1. The override question is split into two parts - $2.1 million for the schools, and $700,000 for other services, including police, fire, and the Council on Aging.

The issue has got residents riled up. After a number of people spoke out against raising taxes, residents who support the override formed the Committee for One Chelmsford to press the argument that new and higher user fees are unfair to parents of schoolchildren.

Under the new fee schedule, for example, a family with two children in high school could pay as much as $2,100 for their bus, sports, and activities, said Mary Frantz, a member of Chelmsford's Finance Committee and the Committee for One Chelmsford. She said the fees are burdens on some families.

Some communities are using small - but still controversial - fees to inch toward a balanced budget.

In Andover, with a budget gap of nearly $4 million, tempers flared when the town began to adopt new fees even before the budget vote at Town Meeting, which is to begin on April 30. Selectmen recently approved raising hourly parking-meter fees from 25 cents to 50 cents, for an annual revenue boost of $123,000.

Outraged members of the business community demanded a public forum to discuss the 25-cent hike.

A hearing is set for Monday.

Globe correspondent Adam Sell contributed to this report. Connie Paige can be reached at cpaige@globe.com.