MERRIMACK - Right or wrong, some residents have
described the ramifications of Tuesday's voting in biblical terms.
The question remains which books of the Bible best fit what Merrimack faces.
Will it be the Genesis of a new era of tax relief or the Exodus of town staff in
the wake of budget cuts and staff reductions?
Will the new board of selectmen - soon to become the town council - offer Psalms
of comfort to the tax-oppressed or will draconian budget cuts create an
apocalypse, if not now, then later?
"Last night was a revolt, there's no other word for it," Selectman Dave McCray
said the day after the election, in which a grass-roots, anti-tax group aligned
with McCray won control of the board of selectmen, cut town spending by $1.5
million and dissolved a 10-year savings fund for a new library.
"It's going to be wonderful for the taxpayers," said Jennifer Twardosky,
cofounder of the grass-roots group called Merrimack Cares and a newly elected
budget committee member.
Others aren't so sure.
"I see some very, very difficult times ahead for this community. I feel sorry
for this community," said Patrick McGrath, former school board member and
unsuccessful candidate for selectman.
"This is going to have some very, very deep ramifications for many years.
Merrimack is going to have a downward spiral."
What's clear in the short term is that the vote will result in an average
reduction of about $400 or more per household when tax bills are mailed out next
fall.
Here's why:
Last year, the board of selectmen returned to residents for tax relief $500,000
from a general fund surplus of $3.3 million. That left a balance of $2.8
million.
The majority of the new board - McCray and newly elected Selectmen Betty Spence
and Mike Malzone - have promised to honor a 2002 advisory ballot question to
return to taxpayers any general fund surplus over $2 million.
Thus, residents will get back an additional $800,000 from the surplus this year.
Add to that $450,000 of anticipated savings from health insurance expected to
remain in the budget at the end of the 2006 fiscal year on June 30.
Plus, there's the $2.5 million from the library fund to add to the pot, for a
total of $3.75 million of tax relief.
The trouble is, that's a one-year windfall, because the surplus will be gone, as
will the library savings. The new board's mettle will be tested in 2007 and
beyond as it works to find ways to hold the line on spending and taxes.
Some people expect a tax spike to hit in late 2007 of 20 percent or more. That
occurred in 2003, when tax bills rose an average of 19 percent the year after a
substantial surplus had been used for tax relief.
Because of that tax spike, and with the advice of the officials from the state
Department of Revenue Administration, the majority of the former board of
selectmen voted to retain the surplus, a move that fueled anger among many
residents and affected last week's voting.
The town side
Starting this week, the board must debate where to cut $1.5 million from town
spending. That was the amount taken out of the proposed 2006-07 budget at the
March 7 deliberative session and approved by voters Tuesday.
The new $25,180,319 budget represents a reduction of 3 percent over current
spending. However, when inflationary increases in utilities and fuel are
factored in, the new budget is more like 5.6 percent below current spending,
town officials say.
In outlining potential cuts, the town manager suggested layoffs and reductions
in services are possible. The majority of the new board said fat can be cut from
the budget without necessitating layoffs, but no one yet has adequately pointed
to $1.5 million in fat.
McCray, in board deliberations in recent months, suggested about $300,000 in
cuts, noted Dick Hinch, the former board chairman who lost his bid for
re-election.
In three months, the town's governing board will have two more heads to put
together to figure out how to hold the line on spending.
That's because voters on Tuesday approved a town charter, which, among other
things, changes the five-member board of selectmen to a seven-member town
council.
The two additional members will be picked in a June 13 special election. In the
meantime, the selectmen can appoint a member to serve out the term of Chuck
Mower, who resigned from the board Thursday.
The charter will take effect July 1.
Regardless of what happens from here, the reason why the vote went the way it
did Tuesday, at least on the town's side, is clear.
"Taxes, taxes, taxes," McCray said.
What happened can be broken down into two steps, he said.
Part A was that people were fed up with taxes and equally fed up that the board
hadn't honored the 2002 ballot question to return the general fund surplus above
$2 million to voters for tax relief, McCray said.
Part B, McCray said, was that "Merrimack Cares provided an organized effort for
people to channel their anger."
He added, "Merrimack Cares was born the night they didn't return the surplus
over $2 million. . . . It gave the taxpayers a place to go for hope."
"The other side was out of touch" and had a "let them eat cake" attitude toward
residents struggling to make ends meet, McCray said.
The school side
With the school district vote in the election, however, the story is a little
more complex.
The $57.3 million district budget recommended by the school board and budget
bommittee passed, as did all warrant articles.
Those articles included $650,000 for a fire sprinkler system at the Mastricola
schools and renovations at Mastricola Upper Elementary School, a $146,200
proposal to update technology at Merrimack High School and a three-year contract
for school support staff, with an estimated cost in salaries and benefits of
$279,195 for 2006-07.
However, while voters ousted Ken Coleman, the longtime board chairman, only one
of two candidates endorsed by the anti-tax group won school board seats.
That was Merrimack Cares cofounder Jennifer Thornton. The other candidate
elected was Jody Vaillancourt, a longtime school volunteer who Coleman had
endorsed.
"The school board as far as governance will be in fairly good shape," Coleman
said in assessing the election.
Coleman said he knows Vaillancourt well and she'll make an excellent school
board member.
He added that he doesn't know Thornton as well, and has met her only once. But
based on that meeting, Coleman said, "I think she will also become a very good
school board member."
Beyond that, voters sent a mixed message, Coleman said.
"The voters have presented almost an interesting puzzle by their votes," he
said. "Clearly, there was tax anger and a mood for change."
But at the same time, the school budget and warrant articles passed, he noted.
Voters indicated on the school side they want to pay staff fairly and don't want
to cut services to students, but they also "want drastic tax relief," he said.
Next year, it will cost $1.1 million to fund the support staff contract and the
teachers contract approved last year - and it will be hard to pay those while
reducing school spending, Coleman said.
That contradiction poses a difficult puzzle.
"Merrimack's got a structural tax problem," Coleman said.
The only possible solution, barring a dramatic change in the tax base, is if
Merrimack "gets back more of our share of state aid," Coleman said.
"Regardless of spending, Merrimack has an unfair tax burden," he said, noting
that suburban towns such as Merrimack, Hudson and Londonderry are getting hurt
by the state's education funding formula.
"Merrimack has about the average per-pupil spending but above-average taxes," he
said.
Budget committee shakeup
One of the election's quirks was that while four members - all endorsed by
Merrimack Cares - were elected to the budget bommittee, the new charter
eliminates the committee from playing a role in the town side of government.
However, a warrant article passed on the school side retains the budget
bommittee to oversee the school budget.
Before the charter passed, the budget committee questioned town, school and
Merrimack Village District water utility spending. Now, the committee only
oversees school spending.
Additionally, the election may result in the committee having a fiscally
conservative majority. The four new members - Twardosky, Chris Ager, Rodney
Buckley and Jack Rothman - join conservative members Rick Barnes and Mike
Thompson.
Twardosky said she feels some of the other members of the committee might align
with her group to give them control of the 15-member committee.
"I think we'll be able to ask some good questions and do some good research" on
school spending, Twardosky said. "I want a budget for dummies. That's the first
thing I'm going to ask for. I will question every single dime that goes through
that school."
She added, "We need to pay our teachers well. We want quality teachers to stay
here with us."
But the committee will look to save money in other areas, perhaps trying out
ideas such as pooling with other towns to buy textbooks.
"I'm really excited to see how creative the town can get," Twardosky said.
Future shock?
Despite the optimistic picture painted by Merrimack Cares, others in town think
the budget can't be chopped by $1.5 million and the line held on spending
without destroying Merrimack's quality of life.
They see the election as a perhaps irrevocable setback for the town - and the
dissolution of the library fund as a waste of 10 years of savings.
The election brought to office candidates who are "hell-bent on cutting taxes
who don't understand the process," McGrath said.
"The quality of life in Merrimack we have enjoyed for the past 10-12 years is
going to diminish greatly," he said.
Referring to the period following what he called the school board battles of the
1990s, McGrath said Merrimack "seemed well on the road to recovery." Residents
supported budgets that brought teachers' pay up to par and improved facilities,
he said.
As a result of that recovery, Merrimack gained status as one of the best towns
of its size in the nation, as rated by Money magazine. McGrath now sees those
advances unraveling as a result of Tuesday's vote.
So does Carolyn Whitlock, whose term on the board of selectmen expired Friday. A
former school board member also, Whitlock didn't run for re-election.
"There are an awful lot of people who bought homes they thought they could
afford at the time and didn't take into consideration that their taxes would
rise as the value of their homes rose. I don't understand that mindset,"
Whitlock said.
Whitlock has been involved in town service for 22 years and has seen a lot of
changes. The most extreme changes were in the mid-'90s and now, she said.
"We are going to see a mass exodus of our most experienced employees," she said.
Short term, she doesn't expect to see many department heads leaving, but that
will happen down the road, she said.
"I think this is going to have a profound effect on Merrimack," Whitlock said.
Patrick Meighan can be reached at 594-6518 or pmeighan@nashuatelegraph.com.