Winchester Town Meeting members challenge $12 million override proposal

Feb. 12--After making the rounds with an operating override pitch to the community, Winchester officials presented their proposal of a $12 million override to Town Meeting members on Feb. 11 -- $10 million for the operating override and $2 million to replenish the Capital and Building Stabilization funds. The number is still an estimate and will be nailed down by selectmen on Friday, Feb. 15.

If Select Board approves, voters have their say March 26. If passed, it would be the second largest override in the Commonwealth's history, Town Meeting member Michelle Prior pointed out, following Newton's 2013 override of $11.4 million.

Treading water, then sinking

But according to Select Board and the Finance Committee, who have been crunching numbers for months, it is the amount Winchester needs in the next three to five years to maintain level services and make necessary improvements to the school programs and town services. A slew of factors increased the urgency: more residents moving in, more students who need more classrooms and teachers, higher healthcare costs are finally catching up with the budget.

"If we're under water at the end of this year, we will be under water even further," said Select Board Chair Lance Grenzeback. "This is not a matter of treading water, we'd slowly be sinking."

Superintendent Judy Evans said the schools have been seeing additional 40 students every year for the past several years, primarily in middle and high school classes, creating larger classes without enough teachers to teach the students.

The $10 million would not be spent right away, but would be staggered over several years with $4.5 million spent in Fiscal Year 2020. In the following years, the town would use another $3.5 in Fiscal 2021 and $2 million in Fiscal 2022. For a $1 million home, the increase would be at $850 the first year, and $1570 in the next two years total, said Mariano Goluboff. The $2 million of the capital funds would be spent in the first year, Grenzeback said.

Town Manager Lisa Wong got applause from the audience for negotiating with the town's health insurance provider to drop their anticipated increase from 7 percent to 3 percent, saving the town almost $500,000.

Other alternatives

While most in the audience seemed to agree the town is in dire need of the $2 million capital override, not everyone was on board with the $10 million portion of the override. On Monday night, David Errico rose to the pulpit, with his own "middle of the road" budget, as he called it. Errico's budget of $7.75 million for operating override and $2 million for capital override, would protect the town's high standards while also considering the financial concerns of those on fixed incomes, he said. This budget would give the schools a $3,8 million increase for the schools in Fiscal Year 2020, would use no free cash in the next two fiscal years, and continue to fund post-employment benefits at $200,000 a year.

Town Meeting member Michelle Prior thought along the same lines with Errico, but proposed an even smaller number of $5 million for the operating override. According to Prior's calculations based on the Department of Education numbers, the annual enrollment growth is less than 1 percent per year, which she doubts will result in the growth the schools are planning for. None of the 40B projects have materialized so far either, she said.

The town could spend more free cash, she suggested, without pushing reserves below the required 6 percent of the total budget and without threatening town's AAA bond rating. "We should use the dollars we have before we raise the levy," she said. A few other Town Meetings members said they also preferred Errico's and Prior's proposals.

But Grenzeback said that these more moderate numbers would bring Town Meeting back in the same room within a year or two, voting another override.

After several Town Meeting members broached the need for a more robust economic development plan, Wong volunteered to champion the effort. But there is no easy solution, Planing Board Chairman Diab Jerius noted. For instance, to increase the revenue from commercial base by 1 percent, it would require about $240,000 square feet of new commercial space. But Winchester simply wasn't built that way, Jerius said. "We have to live with the consequences of the decisions made decades ago. Everyone wants more commercial development, but it's very hard to come up with a way that's a giant silver bullet that will save us."

___

(c)2019 Wicked Local Metro, Needham, Mass.

Visit Wicked Local Metro, Needham, Mass. at needham.wickedlocal.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.