Still 'No Confidence' in the Council Majority

From yesterday's Daily News, concerning Councilor Pinierio:

District 2 Municipal Councilor Mario Pinierio called The Daily News last week to further respond to criticism that the Municipal Council didn't make significant cuts to the budget submitted by the mayor last spring.

During a recent council meeting, Pinierio noted that "the mayor cut the budget $2.2 million; there was no other place to cut." Most of the increases were special education costs in the school budget and increased heating costs for the schools, he said.

"If we had cut any more, we'd be laying off people. We did the best that we could with what we had in front of us," Pinierio said. "The mayor cut ($2 million) for him to take the credit; that way the council could not cut anything because it was as lean as it could be."

If the budget is "lean as could be", why did the majority of the Council support a ballot question that would gut up to $1 million from Amesbury's budget next year? Even Councilor McClure, who proposed the underride, has stated that an underride would "cripple our schools and hurt our community." This suggests that the supporters of the underride are willing to sacrifice our community's assets, regardless of the consequences.

Comparison of Underrides

Further examination of towns that opted for an underride makes for interesting comparisons to the one our town is now considering. Those towns that did pass underrides in excess of 1,000,000, Lancaster and Plymouth, were in very different situations than Amesbury is currently. In 2003, the year Lancaster passed its $1,000,000 underride for FY 2005 by 1 vote, the town had $293 in excess capacity. Between 2003 and 2004, their levy limit increased by almost 47%, from $6.66 million to $9.53 million, with an excess capacity of $1.2 million. Plymouth had almost $2.3 million in excess capacity when they passed their $2 million underride in 1995, for FY 1996. In 1997, the year following the underride took affect, Plymouth’s excess capacity was almost $4.2 million!

Unlike the underride proposed for Amesbury, it appears that the underrides in Lancaster and Plymouth were in response to foreseen increases in excess capacity. In neither Plymouth nor Lancaster did the town vote an underride which would completely eliminate their excess capacity, as could be the case in Amesbury when the underride takes effect in FY 2009. Barring significant new growth, Amesbury would only be able to increase money raised through property taxes by 2.5% if the underride passes. To understand the potential impact, if the underride went into effect for FY 2008, new revenues from property taxes would have been limited to approximately $720,000. When compared to the school’s special education costs increase of $1.1 million in FY 2008, it is clear that the complete elimination of excess capacity can easily lead to dramatic cuts in municipal services.

All sources are from the DOR online databank,

Boston Globe Reports on the Underride

Globe picks up the underride story. Donna McClure rejected the idea that the loss of $1 million in revenues would have major impacts in an approximately $52 million city budget, dismissing such assertions as "scare tactics." To read more click here.

Cable Show on Underride: Monday October 8th, 6:30 p.m. on Channel 12

At-large Candidate Allen Neale and District 6 Candidate Jonathan Sherwood will be appearing on the "All About Amesbury" cable access show on Monday October 8th, 6:30 p.m. to discuss the Underride ballot measure. The show is on Amesbury Comcast cable channel 12.

Residents who do not have cable will be able to access the video on the internet. The video will be posted by Wednesday, October 10th at this website: http://www.allaboutamesbury.net.

Underride Short-Circuits Positive Gains

The underride cannot be discussed seriously without including the very real financial constraints facing some members of our community. Anything with the hint of offering tax relief is going to sound attractive to someone who has difficulty paying the bills. It is my assertion, and I believe the numbers will support this, that not only does the underride provide no tax relief (Donna McClure conceded this point at a recent Municipal Council meeting), it could negate the real tax relief that would be gained through smart growth and professional management of town services.

Department of Revenue data points to a strong correlation between per capita income and town levies. Of fourteen towns in Massachusetts which are similar in size to Amesbury, the correlation between how much people earn, and the town levy, is almost linear. The more people earn, the higher the levy. In this comparison with similar towns, Amesbury's levy is at the high end of the pack, although still consistent with its per capita income. Where Amesbury tax payers are hit harder is when the number of parcels in the town that share the tax levy burden is factored in. The more parcels in a town, the less each parcel’s share of the tax levy. Of the fourteen towns similar in size to ours, our tax levy is higher than all but three towns. We also have fewer parcels than all but four out of the fourteen similarly sized towns.

All that being said, what can we do to offer relief? Again, as even the authors of the petition concede, the underride, if passed, will not lower taxes. The better strategy from the perspective of demographic data is to promote smart growth in the town to better distribute the tax burden, and maintain the flexibility afforded by whatever excess levy capacity we may now have. If we do have excess capacity, let’s use it intelligently as an investment that will pay off in a better, more attractive community, with more people to share the tax burden, resulting in lower taxes for all of us. This is not a question of choosing between providing needed services or lowering taxes. Rather, it is about not losing the flexibility the excess capacity gives us to help make our town a better, more affordable place. VOTE NO TO THE UNDERRIDE!

Underride Removes Ability to Handle Unexpected Costs

One of the big benefits of having some wiggle room left between our budget and our levy limit under Proposition 2 1/2 is being able to handle unexpected but unavoidable new costs from year to year.

Special education costs are a good example of what we would lose with the under-ride. In the last 2 years, school budget increases have been driven by the demands of special needs education. Between the 2007 and 2008 budget, there was a 73% increase in this single cost, equaling $1.1 million. This represents two-thirds of the total increase in the overall school budget from last year to this year (and over 2% of Amesbury's entire budget!).

We have no control over special educations costs, between government mandates and who is attending our schools year to year. If we experienced an increase like this next year, we would already be behind the 8 ball, before we even look at anything else in the budget!

Amesbury's Underride would be one of the largest in the State of Massachusetts History

Only two other towns have had underrides which exceeded $1,000,000. This measure is not only rare, but it is drastic.

SHELBURNE	1993	(65,225)
AYER	1995	(250,000)
PLYMOUTH	1996	(2,000,000)
ORLEANS	1998	(324,000)
WILLIAMSBURG	1998	(51,580)
HOLLAND	1999	(200,000)
UPTON	2001	(143,477)
WILLIAMSBURG	2002	(35,407)
DENNIS	2004	(176,401)
GILL	2005	(10,833)
LANCASTER	2005	(1,032,724)
GROVELAND	2006	(376,968)
SANDWICH	2006	(479,336)

These figure are from the DOR website