Voters reject budget again; Finance Board decides on 0 percent increases
By David Huck
Journal Inquirer
Published: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 1:01 PM EDT
HEBRON — Voters on Tuesday for the second time rejected the town’s budget — this time by a 68-vote margin — even after concessions were made to remove the expansion of all-day kindergarten from the school board’s budget.
And in a special Board of Finance meeting held after the polls closed Tuesday night, board members voted 4-2 to trim the town’s and Board of Education’s budget to a zero percent increase.
Flat-lining the budget means a reduction of $19,546 from the town’s side and $127,239 from the education budget.
Finance Board Vice Chairman Philip LoBianco said board members had difficulty figuring out what people were voting against this time around, but ultimately had to make a decision to allow for a two-week time period before the next referendum on June 1. LoBianco added that he wouldn’t support further reductions if the budget fails at a third referendum.
Residents voted 773-705 Tuesday against the revised $33.8 million budget. The budget would have increased spending 1.09 percent, bringing the Board of Education’s budget to $11.84 million and the town government budget to $8.85 million.
The budget includes $11.66 million, a 4.24 percent increase, for Hebron’s share of the Region 8 RHAM budget, which is split proportionately between Hebron, Andover, and Marlborough. That budget passed in the district referendum vote on May 4.
The Board of Selectmen will meet Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Town Office Building, while the Board of Education’s next regularly scheduled meeting is set for Thursday, June 10, though a special meeting will most likely be held before then.
By town charter, the mill rate must be set by June 15, with the next referendum scheduled for a June 1 vote.
The current mill rate is 28.17 mills.
“I feel the Board of Finance has really been put in a difficult position. I think they weighed their decision very carefully,” School Superintendent Eleanor Cruz said. “I think the goal for everyone is to have the budget pass and move on.”
The town’s initial $33.85 million proposed budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year, which represented an overall increase of 2.11 percent over last year’s budget, was shot down by voters on a May 4 referendum after overwhelming disapproval of the expansion of all-day kindergarten, according to the results of an exit poll.
The Board of Education decided not to expand the all-day kindergarten pilot program during a meeting May 10.
In a voluntary exit poll handed out to the approximately 28 percent of voters who turned out for the first referendum on May 4, 72 percent of respondents said all-day kindergarten shouldn’t be expanded from two full-day classes to four, with the five half-day classes remaining the same. The expansion was meant to help fulfill the needs of 14 new special education students for next year, according to Cruz.
The Board of Finance then held a special meeting May 5, trimming $48,500 from the school board’s budget, the cost of expanding the kindergarten program.
As part of the Board of Education’s original cuts, one curriculum and enrichment teacher will be eliminated from the Gilead Hill School, a fourth-grade teaching position won’t be filled due to a decline in enrollment, and a custodian and paraprofessional position will be cut. The reduction also calls for an increase in e-mail to cut down on supply costs and a decrease in professional development opportunities for next year.
Cruz said she didn’t yet know where the cuts needed to reduce the school board’s budget by $127,239 would come from.
School Board Chairwoman Jane Dube said she was “disappointed in the turnout as well as the outcome.” She says at zero, the education budget is really 5 percent lower than last year’s budget due to increases in salaries and fixed costs such as electricity and oil.
Dube said looking at programs that affect the least number of students will be the starting point in determining reductions.
Nearly 24 percent of the town’s 6,258 voters came out for the second referendum, less than the roughly 28 percent that voted down the original proposed budget on May 4.
“The important thing is that people have got to come out and vote,” Town Manager Bonnie Therrien said, adding that she would be working on reductions to present to the Board of Selectmen at its meeting Thursday.
Included in the May 4 exit poll was a comment section for voters to add their input. Among the 453 write-ins, the majority of comments reflected the following themes, according to the town manager’s office: salaries are too much for school board and town employees, more money is needed for open space, no to all-day kindergarten and wait until the economy is better, and the director of curriculum position shouldn’t have been filled.
“I think its irresponsible to keep responding to a moving target,” Dube said, who was the lone dissenting vote against the elimination of the expansion of the all-day kindergarten during a May 10 Board of Education meeting.
“I don’t think the budget, as it stands now, is adequate to fund the education in town,” she added, saying she will continue to stand by her position on a return to the original 1.5 percent Board of Education increase.
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