For overrride, one big hurdle left
A seven-year plan for financial recovery helped persuade Bridgewater Town Meeting to go along with a $1.36 million tax increase. The question is: Will voters agree or, once again, insist on austerity?
"I think a lot of people recognize the need to fund budgets, but looking at the economy, I think it will be a close vote," said Herbert Lemon, chairman of the Board of Selectmen. "We tried to find a balance, when we set the override amount, to get what the town needs, while minimizing the impact."
A special election on the latest override request is planned June 14. Two previous requests failed.
On Monday, Town Meeting approved two budgets for next year. The first, a $41.4 million contingency budget, relies on funds an override would bring. The increase would allow the public library to return to a 63-hour per week schedule, provide civilian dispatchers to the Fire Department, create a town planner position, prevent the loss of 28 positions from the regional school system, add a needed $20,000 to the town's insurance account, and put $600,000 into cash reserves to boost the town's bond rating.
The second, more stringent budget of $40 million, would be implemented if the override fails.
Last June, voters defeated a $2.8 million override request. In September, they rejected a $2.2 million proposal, resulting in severe cuts to several departments.
Keith Buohl, an override supporter and chairman of Citizens for a Better Bridgewater, acknowledged that Town Meeting's approval of the proposed tax increase doesn't necessarily predict success at the polls.
"The Town Meeting isn't a place where the 'no's' are going to try to stop an override," Buohl said. "But they will be out for the ballot vote, that's for sure." Several "vote no" signs showed up on local lawns last week within hours of the announcement that officials planned to go for another override for the upcoming year's operational expenses.
"Their signs have no dates on them, so they can use them every year," Buohl said. "They just keep them in the garage and take them out, like holiday decorations. To me, it's fiscally irresponsible to oppose an override until you study it. This override has been well thought out, tied to a seven-year plan for recovery, and it's definitely conservative."
Buohl said his group's steering committee supports the override, which would add $190 to the taxes on a median-priced house of $377,000. But Buohl noted the group's membership includes people, on both sides of the override debate, who simply want to see a better town. "We'll send out an e-mail blast to our membership in the next few days to see how they feel," Buohl said.
Pleasant Street resident William Ginn argues the town doesn't need an override. "I'm an opponent of bloated town government," Ginn said Tuesday. "They're trying to hoodwink us, as usual, saying we need an override and it will solve all the town's problems."
Richard Lowe of North Street is another longtime override opponent. "If we addressed the healthcare costs, and made the split 50-50 instead of 80-20, we wouldn't need an override," Lowe said, referring to the proportion of premiums paid by the town.
Adjusting the employer-employee contribution to insurance premiums is part of a three-point plan to financial recovery recently adopted by the selectmen and Advisory Board.
"The trouble with the three-point plan is I'm just not patient enough to wait for it to fix things," Lowe said. He expects the June ballot vote to be close, since the contingency budget drew a large amount of support at Monday's Town Meeting.
Officials in Raynham also will be watching the vote closely, because the towns share a school system. If Bridgewater doesn't approve an override, its share of next year's school budget will be underfunded by $275,000. That would result in a lowering of the school district's assessment to Raynham by $161,000.
Gordon Luciano, Raynham resident and chairman of the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional School Committee, said his town won't fund its full assessment by the district at its May 19 Town Meeting, but will wait for the outcome of Bridgewater's override vote.
"Year in and year out, we have funded our share and then have to come back to Town Meeting and adjust the numbers after Bridgewater takes its vote," Luciano said. "Why go through the exercise of trying to identify resources to come up with our full share until we know what Bridgewater is going to do?"
Christine Legere can be reached at christinelegere@yahoo.com.
