Editor’s note: This report of the September 28 SB meeting was written by SB member Patrick White. SU invites Chair Chuck Cardillo and Jamie Minacci to be guest reporters of any SB meeting or to contribute an article or letter.
Lately, I have been sending out personal notes that have been light-hearted and informative. I feel the need to digress. Since this has no puppy dogs, no bunny rabbits, no kitty cats, I am posting it in Stockbridge Updates.
I’m not feeling very good right now. Here’s why, here’s the lay of the land. Stockbridge is in a slow-motion crisis, and I am getting no support from my board in addressing these issues.
In the last few years, behind the scenes, I worked with Michael Canales and did the hard work it took to rein in the town budget. His initial budget kept the growth of town spending to just a 5% increase. I went through the budget line by line and found a number of areas we could cut further. So, despite the unforeseen, last minute increase, in our school budget, we were able to keep the town budget to a growth of just 1.8% last year. Not this year. We cut everything we could, and this year we are renegotiating both the highway and police union contracts and will need to address non-union pay scale. I expect the budget this year to grow 6%-8%.
Assessments are going up approximately 13% again this year, despite the rise in mortgage interest rates. Demand for property in Stockbridge continues to be strong. Using the 1/3-1/3-1/3 rule, assessments will cause significantly higher taxes for 1/3 of you, because their impact is based on your neighborhood and style of house. And some of you are on fixed incomes and will be hard pressed to absorb the double whammy of budget and assessments.
For four years, I’ve seen this coming, and have worked hard to come up with a slate of proposals to address this. When I first ran, I described this as a book-end strategy: namely, how we ensure that we have a town that works for both our current elderly on fixed incomes, and the next generation—your children and grandchildren. Ensure working families have a fighting chance to live here and, at the same time, preserve the beauty and character of a town that attracts our second homeowners.
Working families are often called the “missing middle”. If we fund housing for the missing middle, the Affordable Housing Trust can preference local police, teachers, nurses, municipal employees, and all the others we need to work and live in our community who can no longer afford it. If we fund it.
Which brings me to Thursday night.
We have suspended our senior work off program, a program that allows seniors of modest means the ability to work off up to $1,500 of their taxes, because our program was illegal: we never authorized it at a town meeting. We have a special town meeting scheduled for October 23 to vote on the school merger. I advocated adding this authorization to the warrant. It didn’t pass, both of my colleagues voted against it. The practical impact: no senior work off for this year’s taxes, no program in place until next July if it makes it on the annual warrant in May. No relief for seniors who need it and could have worked to pay some of their tax bill.
On October 12, we will have our annual tax classification hearing. I wonder if once again, my colleagues will refuse to consider the Residential Tax Exemption, that could provide you with relief from the high assessments and higher taxes many of you will face.
We passed an Affordable Housing Trust in this town. Now we have to fund it or it is but a hollow gesture. Last night, I proposed we allow you to consider a transfer fee that the purchaser would pay on certain property sales. To do so, Sen. Paul Mark, Sen. Lydia Edwards, the Secretary of Housing for the Commonwealth all recommended we join roughly 20 other communities this year and ask the legislature to authorize it. Last night, my colleagues voted no and did not support it.
Coincidentally, we had a developer at the meeting last night who plans to build dozens of luxury homes in the next few years. Without opposition, I was able to put before you the Residential Inclusionary Bylaw for your consideration. You passed it and it will create funding through the Affordable Housing Trust for 10-20 families to be able to live here, and/or allow us to fund block grants to help existing homeowners maintain their homes.
You could fund even more workforce housing units with a transfer fee, but two leaders disenfranchised you from making this decision which is rightly yours to make.
My job is to work in the best interests of our town. I will bring two ballot initiatives to the town meeting in May even if I have to stand in front of the Post Office and collect the signatures myself. First, I will ensure that the senior work-off program is put back in place. Second, I will ensure that you are given all the options to consider funding workforce housing. That’s your decision, not mine. You should be given the right to make it. Finally, I want your opinion on whether we should propose that we expand the Select Board from three to five members. This would allow board members to meet between meetings, and might help us create more understanding of the issues each other works on. I need help.
