Politics & Government

Mansfield Town Meeting Approves Town and School Budgets

Mansfield town-side budget passes 212-199.

The budget was this year's hot-button issue in Mansfield this year. With a $3.2 million gap in revenue to budgeted funds, it didn't seem like an easy solution could be found.

The Mansfield Town Meeting quorum approved both the town and school budgets on Tuesday, and all agreed, it was not an easy (or tenable) solution. The town side of the budget passed with a head count of 212 for and 199 against. The school budget passed without a contentious quorum. The budget was closed mostly with one-time use free cash funds leftover from last year's budget in health care savings. 

$41,098,245 was appropriated for the schools and $35,185,945 for the town. One the school side, teachers' salaries that could not otherwise be paid were paid through various funds (including free cash) for the schools and two police officer positions and one firefighter position were reintegrated into the budget since being cut in years prior. 

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The finance committee agreed that they did not support this article in the town meeting. 

“The finance community does not support the budget,” James Lezzara of the finance committee said. “There are two major reasons for this opposition. We believe the strategy used to balance the budget is not based on sound financial principles and we do not know the effect this adopted budget will have in future years.”

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Free cash for the operational budget, borrowing money for road repairs, not planning for a bad state budget outlook and having no plans to close a potential gap were the reasons Lezzara cited for the committee’s opposition to the budget.

“Experience tells us that this approach is not based on sound financial principles so we can’t support it,” he said. “We know our position may not be popular, but it’s based solely on the facts of the budget.”

Line items were also funded through one-time use projects like road repairs, wall repairs for the Mansfield High School gym and self contained breathingapparatus upgrades for the Mansfield Fire Department. The finance committee said in previous meetings that, since items like this were one-time payments and not salaries or required maintenance, they did not have a problem with spending the free cash on them.

Town officials stressed the importance of working together and coming to a consensus on the budget to avoid the “fire drill” that has now been associated with budget season in Mansfield.

“The [2012] budget is a result of looking at the town in that way,” said town manager William Ross. “It is not perfect, I would be the first to say that to you. We accept those challenges, we pledge to you to build a Mansfield we can all continue to be proud of – a community with good services, solid infrastructure and excellent schools – a complete community for all of us. Together with your support of this budget and the work we can accomplish in the coming year and years to follow, we can make all of those things happen for our community.”

The debate was preceded by a lecture from Dr. John Mullin, who has been working with the town over the past six months to develop a five-year strategic plan. He said the industrial park, while in need of modernization, was the crown jewel in Mansfield’s crown. He said that, with certain upgrades, the facility could generate the funds necessary to help fund the needs of the town in later years.

Citizens who spoke during the meeting were conflicted in opinion on the subject of the budget. Taxes and schools seemed to be the two camps in the meeting. Resident Paul Burke said he felt the actions of town officials were irresponsible, and that spending free cash on repeat items in the budget was not sustainable and unfair to many in the community.

“Free cash isn’t free,” Burke said.  “We need that money. When you start buying operating expenses with free cash, you are going to sink. I’m going to tell you right now, that tax rate is going to go up… The really sickening thing I haven’t heard is that I haven’t heard anybody talk about the impact of this on the tax rate to people like myself, people that are elderly or retired. This is how much money I have day-to-day… This budget is the earthquake – the tsunami will be your taxes next year.”

Many felt that the schools aren’t being funded to the point they need to. New Mansfield resident John Wagner said that he had moved to Mansfield six months ago from Richmond Virginia, and that the schools in his district there were much better funded. He said that high school students in the district all had their own iBooks.

“If the students in Richmond are that far ahead of students in Mansfield… where do you think our kids are going to fall in the pecking order in college?” he said. “How do you think they’re going to compare to students who are two years ahead of them in their own age bracket? I think education is vitally important. Yes, some of us are retired; I’m very close to retirement age. I think those people who are retired had the benefit of education in this community their entire lives for their children. 18 years ago this was a blue-ribbon school district, those people probably enjoyed the benefits for their children being in a blue ribbon school district. So why the hell can’t we get this school district back to a blue ribbon state?”

 Some residents were wary on either side of the issue, stating that the budget seemed to suddenly get fixed at the 11th hour.

“I’m not against funding the schools,” said resident Jim Dara. “I am against playing a shell game about moving money from one place to another.”

Dara continued by saying he was against using free cash to fund teaching positions and then borrowing money for road repairs, repairs he felt would have been funded by free cash funds. The interest on such long-term loans would not be helpful to the town, and could cause problems down the line.

“In 20 years who’s going to paying that money back? Our kids,” he said. “We should be paying for our kids’ education, not our kids. If they need money for the schools for next year, we should be paying for it, and we shouldn’t be mortgaging it out and letting our kids pay for it 10 or 20 years later.”

 


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