Tightening Our Belts

I hear from some folks that they won't vote for an override until the town "tighten's its belt".

Well, the good news is that Amherst has already tightened its belt. While Northampton was passing its override last year, Amherst was cutting 51 staff from the schools and 13.5 from town departments (including 3 police officers). Our town officials took seriously the message from the failure of the 2007 override. They asked a citizens’ fiscal committee (the FCCC) to examine the budget and identify strategies for closing Amherst’s structural deficit. Here are the areas the FCCC identified in 2008, and what has happened since:

* Increase fees for services. Done. LSSE is now practically all fee-based; other fees increased.

* Increase revenue from ambulance service. Done. Rates have been increased. Reduce costs through efficiencies, consolidation, and regionalization.

* We’ve closed a school, closed a pool, consolidated departments in Town Hall, restructured health plans, pursued regional emergency dispatch, cut over 60 staff.

* Increase economic development. Master Plan is done; business zoning is revamped; revenue-generating projects include the Lord Jeff, Boltwood Place, New England Environmental. Patterson property development and UMass taxable student housing discussions are ongoing.

* Implement local option meals/lodging tax. Done. New, annual revenues now coming in.

* Secure a Prop 2.5 override. Yes, the citizens’ fiscal committee said we would need one. Our public officials have done the hard work needed to erase our structural deficit over the long term. Even with the override, we will have made $7 million in cuts this year and next!

What we face now is the short-term problem of the recession. We can’t just keep cutting our way out – not if we want to emerge with the things we value about our community intact.