Override strategies argued at FinCom

The Finance Commission (FinCom) met with various department heads last week to discuss the general government side of the budget for the upcoming Town Meeting in May (as opposed to the schools’ side of the budget).

The FinCom membership debated the merits of the proposed Public Safety Override, set for its first hurdle at the May Town Meeting.

The proposed override would allow for funding for about 16 new firefighters and five new police officers (with the possibility of four more in the future). The departments are hosting a public information session on March 26 at 7 p.m. in the Public Safety Building to go over why they need the increased personnel. The arguments have been made at several meetings designed to authorize the override – like the workshop in January https://tinyurl.com/3hmfrwds or the vote earlier this month https://tinyurl.com/bdfn8xnv – and there are basically two reasons the departments need said staff.

The first is, perhaps somewhat obvious – there is no longer a hospital in Norwood. This has increased time spent outside of Town for ambulances, increasing mutual aid coverage needs from other Towns, which costs more money than dedicated staff at the department. It also means that Norwood Police have to transport mental health service calls to outside Towns as well.

The second reason is that call volumes have steadily increased for the last five years. Town Manager Tony Mazzucco said in past meetings this is just a part of Norwood now, and compared statistics to other towns with similar populations and said that Norwood has a higher call rate than others.

And the FinCom membership is not fighting any of these points. FinCom Vice Chair Alan Slater said he believes the funding is necessary, but he feels it could be obtained differently.

FinCom Chair Sarah Sullivan came at it in a similar way. She pointed out that the Town could make the effort to figure out cuts to services in other places in order to give Town Meeting members and voters an option other than the all-or-nothing pitch that seems to be coming for the Public Safety Override.

“I think the hope is that an override would pass, but that’s not going to last, but also if it doesn’t pass, are we saying, ‘Well we made this large presentation about how we’re not adequately staffed,’” she said. “There is a compelling case that we need more staff and if we look at the budget holistically, do we really think some of the things we’re spending money on are more important, more of a need than more public safety?”

Sullivan said she’s advocating this because the Town knows that in the following two or three years, the Town is going to come to the voters for another override to address the $7 million structural budget deficit.

“This is the game we’ve been playing – let’s all be honest – accepting a structural deficit because we’ve been fortunate to have a free cash balance,” she said. “It’s a hard decision, and I don’t know what the right decision is.”

Mazzucco said the separate override is an ask of residents to dictate the level of service they want in Town.

“That’s what everyone feels comfortable doing,” he said. “We feel this is the appropriate level of service for the community, and the money isn’t there.”

Slater said he felt combining the two overrides would be the way to go so they could have a holistic budget, but Mazzucco said he wasn’t comfortable with that, as the structural override isn’t ready, and by teasing out the asks, both would remain lower. He added that if more free cash comes in this year or next year, it could ease the future override cost. Basically, he said that the best strategy is to respond to conditions as they know they are now and space it out to reduce potential future costs rather than trying to predict everything the Town is going to need in the future.

There is possibly some voter reaction math happening here as well. Presumably, the thinking likely includes that if the Town overestimates the need and puts in an override with more money than necessary, taxpayers will feel officials didn’t do their jobs correctly and took more money from them than needed. If they underestimate, then presumably the Town would have to go back for another override earlier than is currently expected, and taxpayers would be hit earlier and harder.

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So, Mazzucco said by spacing them out they can react to conditions as they occur and be a bit more nimble. Now, that’s not to say this is a situation Mazzucco likes to be in, as he appeared to emphatically explain the need for the override being Prop 2.5. This state law requires no levy increase above 2.5 percent each year, and Mazzucco has said in previous meetings that with health insurance increases alone topping out at or over the 2.5 percent levy increase amount, there is very little the Town can do otherwise.

“The limitations of Prop 2.5 force us to have these types of discussions that we shouldn’t have to have; this is an $8 a month increase in people’s taxes,” he said. “One-million-and-a-half-dollars is not substantial to the overall Town budget, but because of Prop 2.5, it forces us into a discussion that I don’t think any of us would say no to, but now we have to have this affirmative action vote to do it, which is what forces us into this difficult scenario of how to game it.”

Mazzucco said reducing services in the budget is something the Town could consider instead of the override, but said he doesn’t believe reducing services could come up with the money the Town needs to fill, at least in the structural override. And he said the loss of services, at least at a point, can trigger a feedback loop that further reduces the budget and services.

“You could look at service reductions – the Town of Easton has done that – they got rid of municipal ambulance service,” he said. “It didn’t make as much money as ours does and they got rid of that. I live in this Town too, just like everyone else, and I wouldn’t want to live with a service like that. Easton also got rid of their municipal trash. They said, ‘We’re done with it, it costs money, everyone just go and hire private service. Not even charge for trash, which is a discussion we’ve had, whether we charge for trash and if we lose the override that’s one the table – but they were like ‘Nope, call a private vendor, we’re done with that all together.’ If we have to go down that path we will, but then you start looking at the totality of services you need, and what kind of community are you protecting when you start gutting all of your services? That just leads to lower property values, different types of folks moving in, different problems that would just dump it back on police and fire.”

Sullivan said also that because of the structure of Prop 2.5, an override cannot permanently increase budget percent increases, and that the Town will likely have to have this conversation all over again.

“It’s not a permanent increase, we’d have to go back in the future as well,” she said.