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Date: 5/9/2023
SOUTHAMPTON — The warrant for the May 9 Annual Town Meeting included Article 7, which asks voters to authorize a Proposition 2½ override of $332,555.26. The proposed override will empower the town to upgrade and populate the Fire Department and emergency medical services. The option, usually unpopular among taxpayers, also seems to have reignited grievances among some members of town government with the budget process itself.
“What we’re looking at is an override to help support the whole public safety part of our municipality,” said Selectboard Chair Christine Fowles. “There is a couple of items in there for the Police Department…[so] this is focused on public safety and some of the needs we’ve identified through the year.”
Town Administrator Ed Gibson said the additional monies will pay for full-time police officers. The police reform bill signed into law in 2020 mandates part-time officers have the same level of training as full-time officers. Part-time officers are now a rarity. The town intends to hire full-timers, with benefits and other employment costs, to work those duty shifts.
Gibson explained the override will fund upgrades for EMS personnel as well.
“The other piece is on the fire/EMS side,” Gibson said. “We’ve really never gotten to fully, shall we say, staff the 24/7 advanced life system…so we’re looking to fulfill that for our residents, or at least ask [them]…Is that what they want for an ambulance service?”
Approval of the override by voters will fund the hiring of two full-time paramedics. Gibson said the fire chief, at present, is the only full-time person in the department. Additional paramedics would reduce the reliance on mutual aid, when calls in Southampton are handled by responders from other towns, which is expensive. A new administrative position, straddling both the Fire and Police departments, will further the coordination of safety services.
A third element of the public safety picture is the departure of Fire Chief John Workman and the need to replace him. Fowles said that while it’s a challenge to hire a new chief it also offers the chance to take a good close look at the department. The override includes money for a study.
“Our game plan is to have an interim former fire chief come in and hold the fort down, but especially do an independent outside assessment of the entire Fire and EMS Department,” Fowles said. “There’s some money in this budget, in this override, to fund that study.”
Vickie Moro, a member of the Finance Committee, understands the Selectboard’s reasons for posing the override are to bring departmental plans to fruition. Moro also lauded the desire to retain current staff with appropriate salaries.
“They are actually trying to bring people up to speed in terms of wages. That’s a good thing,” Moro said. “They’re trying to…give a competitive wage.”
The committee member is troubled and unsatisfied, however, with the administration’s process for building the budget. She said the Selectboard has been slow, in recent years, in putting together the numbers. She also finds the Selectboard doesn’t listen to the committee, which includes professionals working in municipal finance.
“There’s some validity to that,” Moro said. “Being the former town accountant for eight years, it’s seems as though some suggestions that a few of us on the [Finance Committee] made about certain things really didn’t get any responses from the Selectboard…But you have individuals who are experts in their field telling you certain things, and I would think you would listen to the people who actually do that job for a living.”
The committee is down from five members to three. Nilda Cohen, a past member of the committee and Selectboard, now a member of the Zoning Board of Appeals, attributed the skeleton crew on the FinCom to the disregard of the Selectboard.
“Part of the [Finance Committee] just walked out and left them with no one, because they were feeling they did not have the information they requested. So this has been going on for a couple of years,” Cohen said. “I’m 77 years old. I’ve been doing finances for a long time. I smell something here.”
One problem Cohen sees with the slow budget process develops when the administration is late to submit “recap sheets” to the Mass. Dept. of Local Services. So-called tax rate recapitulation sheets document a town’s budget plan for the year, including anticipated revenues. Cohen said that in certain years the DLS “pushed through” the town’s recap sheets, even though she knew there were mistakes.
Cohen said the town’s bond rating was lowered in 2021 because of the town auditor’s report. That reduced the town’s borrowing capacity because money can’t be secured at the lowest rates. More recently, local aid has been delayed. Normally paid monthly, Cohen said the town just received aid for January and February.
Cohen also found fault with the administration’s use of ARPA money. Fowles and Gibson both said that salary expenses were not directly paid with ARPA monies. Those one-time grant funds may have paid other bills, which then freed up locally generated funds, which Cohen suggested have been used to pay wages.
“We had a lot of ARPA money and COVID money. It was like a shopping spree,” Cohen said. “I’ve been asking for printouts of how that ARPA money was spent…because I don’t believe ARPA money should be used to give raises.”
Moro was less concerned with the numbers in the budget and more with the delays in the budget process. She allowed that state numbers for local aid, the so-called cherry sheet, were delayed by the commonwealth during the coronavirus pandemic, and that COVID-19 disrupted other years. Still, the tardiness seems chronic to Moro.
“Here we are, pushing out an ATM again, for the third or fourth time in the past couple years,” Moro said. “It always seems like they’re behind the eight ball all the time. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if it’s because the town administrator’s doing too much…[but] they shouldn’t have to move Town Meeting because they’re not prepared. I guess that’s my point.”
The spring Town Meeting was delayed by a week, from the traditional first Tuesday in May to the second Tuesday. A possible cause may have been the unexpected refund of Excess and Deficiencies monies from the Hampshire Regional School District. The disposition of that refund of $350,387 was voted on by the regional school committee on May 1. It will be dispersed to member towns as a credit on the fiscal year 2022-2023 school assessment.
Cohen is against an override if the budget numbers aren’t nailed down and firm. Gibson said that free cash will be certified by the time doors opened at Town Meeting. Cohen still sees the override as evidence of problems that will resurface, maybe as soon as next year.
“These are the sins of our leaders. In the last five years it’s gotten progressively worse,” Cohen said. “I don’t do this because I have a feeling….I’m concerned because it’s not going to go away. It’s going to ripple into next year, another override, because the deficit is going to be much larger.”
Fowles acknowledged the public need for safety and the administration’s need to improve.
“What might we need to do better, or how can we change things to make it more sustainable and more sensible for this kind of town?” she asked. “This is a chance to take an internal look at ourselves and be sure we’re doing what we should be doing, in regards to that department.”
Southampton’s Annual Town Meeting took place at Norris Elementary School on May 9.