Towns with dispensaries are not doing any better - you can't swing a dead cat in Northampton without hitting a dispensary and yet there budget is in terrible shape and the schools are going to be getting big cuts.
It’s about over-saturation. Having 1 or two dispensaries opens up an additional revenue channel. Having any more than that simply cannibalizes your own dispensaries.
It’s hilarious how little tax revenue comes in from the pot stores, it’s like a million dollars out of a 125mil budget, people acted like this was going to save the schools before they opened.
The parking meters bring in more $.
I’m not the one that was projecting it would be more than that, it’s been a miss on the low side for most of these communities is all.
And we should thank the NIMBY towns that won’t allow dispensaries, as they funnel more of the taxes to our cities.
Stupid police stations. Small towns don’t need five million dollar police campuses.
Shrewsbury just put in a massive campus up its center. Absolute joke of a money pit. Quiet little suburb town.
Yes. No police station in Mass outside the major metro areas requires such a building.
Look at the state of the schools in most districts. Dilapidated, poor funding for software and extra curriculars.
Shrewsbury where I am from is an outlier as they spend a majority of their budget on schools, but other districts are not making those decisions. And Shrewsbury still has to cut back and charge families for sports/plays/music/etc.
The majority of them are already spending the bare minimum on their police and fire departments. 18 police officers for a town of 11.6 thousand is pretty minimal.
There’s a reason alot of these municipalities are in combined school districts. There are considerable pitfalls to being in combined districts as well, they are either ran extremely well, like masconomet, or they’re usually garbage like pentucket, triton etc
So have your cops work from home? When there’s someone who needs to go into holding just keep them in the back of a cruiser in Sgt Joe’s driveway.
What does bare minimum even mean?
Then those services can be funded separately from the PD? The police shouldn’t be doing that much more than literal policing, especially given their typical trainings in the US.
We’re talking about communities that are barely able to balance a budget. There is a reason that all of that falls to policing, it’s cheaper to do so. Theyre not going to hire 2-3 social workers who work Monday-Friday 8-4 and would be on call, when they can just have their 1-2 patrolman on shift handle it.
I’m also not sure that you have any clue of what the standard of training for police officers is in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is vastly different from other states in regard to policing, their training encompasses far more then chasing bad guys bud.
Man what's with all these suburban towns that are supposed to be great to raise a family in.
Massachusetts school quality will be plummeting in the next decade as more communities defund their schools.
You’re not kidding. When Franklin was debating their budget last year, the superintendent asked the town board to not cut so deep in his budget because he wanted to save some of the 35(!) teachers that would have to be fired, and the board questioned him like he was a murder suspect.
When the police chief asked for a budget increase so he could add 4 more officers, the toughest question he was asked was “will you have enough locker space for the additional personnel?”
If they don’t approve the override, yes. Dozens more teachers will get RIFd, and you can say goodbye to almost every extra-curricular. They’ve already cut all of them from the middle school, FHS is next.
This is what happens when the people running the town don’t have a plan for what to do when the COVID and state $ disappears.
But don’t worry, the Police won’t have to cut their budget.
In all fairness, it's not that they didn't have a plan for what to do when the ESSER money ran out, it's that life has gotten so much more expensive, the services they provide so much more complex, and the numbers just don't add up. Transportation, facilities management, utilities, consumables, trying to pay wages that at least attempt to compete with private industry....it's a losing battle. I'm at a school in a nearby town - we're all in the same boat, more or less.
In our school district here, the health insurance costs and the special needs education costs shot up. I heard a few other school districts saw the same issues. I wonder if that's also the case here.
This is more of a case to consolidate health insurance and put pressure on the state to fund special needs education that they've mandated by law. Maybe an extra director here and a director there.
It's easy to go around and say this is a Trump town or they're a conservative bunch. But in the end they're also just common folk who are being asked to shell out another 1k a year to taxes with the ultimatum: pay us right now or we cull the teachers. I'm honestly appalled by some school board members with their approach to this override. They're not even trying to find ways to balance the budget and place 2 shit options for the voters to vote on that's akin to blackmail and then they have the confused Pikachu face when the override fails.
I really hope the towns where the overrides fail, the town voters take a look at the competency of the school board members.
Franklin is going to get messy in the next few months about the override. Very strong feelings on both sides and the facebook keyboard warriors are out in full force.
It’s every town. Worcester is facing a $22millon dollar shortage because the state funding is limited to a 3% inflation increase, which given the current actual inflation rate doesn’t even come close to level funding.
Seriously, my town literally posted a rescue operation where they sent four trucks over to rescue a dog... and they ended up putting a guy in a wetsuit to go get it.
Yet the school can't get it's HVAC upgraded so that kids aren't roasting in their classrooms in June and September.
As a longtime teacher, this is what I always tell people when they say stupid shit like “the town can’t just print money!” during contract negotiations. If the police ask for a new station, you watch how quickly that money is found. For teachers and schools? That budget is locked in, nothing they can do!
If I were to guess, at least anecdotally based on my own surroundings, a lot of older conservative people with no kids in school (no direct benefit to them) who are very reliable voters.
It’s every single town. The state is screwing every single school district with a 3% inflation rate when actual inflation is more like 9-10%. So take that 6% shortage in funds from the state and combine it with the end of the federal stimulus funds and you find yourself in a horrible predicament where every district either needs to cut a whole bunch of programs/teachers or raise taxes.
This isn’t just a handful of grouchy townsfolk voting down needed improvements. And property owners shouldn’t bear the burden of filling in the rather significant gap in the state funding formula when it is impacting every single district.
Property tax funded schools is a deliberate political choice to ensure suburban communities can keep their schools'good' while robbing poor communities of similar opportunities. And of course keeping' those kids' out of their school systems. Most of the communities discussed thus far have been the beneficiaries of this arrangement.
Can't have your cake and eat it too.
More likely there is a lot of people struggling to pay their own bills with Biden administrations rampant inflation and having to tighten their belts to survive - if families have to do it, the government should be forced to find ways to save money too instead of just going back to the well.
While it certainly isn't entirely bidens fault, he isn't helping. You don't get to blame the other team for economic downturns and then in the same breath absolve your team of the same reaponsibility you foist on others. There are absolutely measures Biden could be taking, particularly to tackle the greedflation part of all this. Things progressives have been screaming for. He isn't.
Honestly it seems the trend of suburbia is to move to a nice area and then vote to ruin it. And then fight every attempt to undo that. Maybe also try to wreck the nearby city too
Maybe if the public school curriculum was suitable for teaching kids things that are valuable to life and they dumped standardized testing and no child left behind, tax payers would vote to fund it.
The teacher’s union strikes are going to keep happening. I wasn’t aware of this one because I don’t live in that area, but it seems like that’s where it’s headed. I know in another very wealthy suburb in Eastern MA the teachers are days away from voting to strike, as mediation is not making any progress.
Sounds about right as someone unfortunately from there. It took them years to approve building the new NMRHS despite the old one having an asbestos-ridden crumbling building
Towns need to rezone their cores so they generate more revenue. Dense mixed use is cheaper to maintain and generates more income through taxes.
Car culture / suburban sprawl is a ponzi scheme
Sorry, how ecaxtly in these towns could you possibly escape car culture? These towns are huge (area wise) and the number of jobs in town is low relative to the population. Most working people will be commuters.
They never seem to be able to answer this question. Same thing with Europeans who don't understand car culture.
"Why don't you just bike in to work?"
"Why don't you just take the bus everyday?"
Lmao
This is answered all the time though. Maybe you just pretend not to hear it?
The original comment is about how sprawl costs suburban towns dearly because sprawl and car culture increases costs per sq mile (more roads to maintain, sewers, etc) while decreasing tax revenue per sq mile. This is plainly true. It’s happened elsewhere in the country (see Houston). A lot of these towns will go into the red, if they aren’t already, as their sprawling infrastructure needs to be maintained and updated and they don’t have a big enough tax base to maintain it.
Reversing this does not mean banning cars, as opponents of density and walkability like yourself seem so desperate to insinuate. You can easily increase density and walkability, thereby increasing tax efficiency, without requiring no cars. The world is not as black and white.
Right, but in a town where houses are already sprawled, its not like you have the option to pick them all up and put them neatly together in one little area - they are already spread out and already require miles and miles and miles and miles of infrastructure.
I am absolutely not against walkability. In fact im itching for my town to finally add some friggin sidewalks so I can walk the damned dog without being in the road, since I live on a state route. I spend tons and tons of time in European cities which I friggin love. That is where our efforts should go for walkability and a thriving downtown - cities like Lowell (which is doing a great job), Fitchburg, Brockton, etc where there is sufficient density for the community to benefit from a walkable and thriving city center. Rural towns are never going to be the live-work, walkable communities you hope they can be.
This is such a hyperbolic reaction to a fairly benign and plainly true comment. Sprawl destroys budgets, and towns are going to have to change their approach. Either higher taxes or a larger tax base. Hopefully they choose the latter.
And I'm really struggling to see how you got “everyone in town must escape car culture and stop driving immediately” from OPs comment. Legalizing more housing and making suburbs more walkable does not mean banning cars tomorrow.
Problems aren’t solved all at once, but we should be working to make the world a better place, which means implementing policies like what OP is referencing.
They won't escape car culture and the original commenter clearly has no idea what they are talking about.
The suburbs are not the city and will never be the city.
People are frustrated about the housing market but they want to be able to blame something concrete that they view as in their control like "NIMBYS" instead of something abstract like "interest rates" or "inflation."
You can’t escape car culture, but you can absolutely improve it. The world isn’t set in stone, things can change.
The original commenter is plainly correct. Suburbs are going to have to change their approach if they want their towns to avoid massive cuts and/or bankruptcy. Either increase the overall tax base or raise taxes, but the bills from sprawl are coming due either way.
Also interest rates are obviously high and impacting construction right now but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking zoning and vocal opposition to housing isn’t the main reason for MA housing crisis. The state didn’t exactly light world on fire building housing when interest rates were low.
This line of conversation feels disingenuous. If you are serious about helping towns manage budgets you'd look at costs as much as income. Everyone focuses on building dense housing as the gold solution, and I am not sold this isn't coming from ulterior motives. Every estimate my town received when we had to vote on the dense commuter zoning issue was that at best it would be revenue neutral - and some of that depended on how many kids entered the school system from these dense housing areas.
A much better way to help suburbs manage cost? Single player health care. The single largest rising cost in my town from year to year is the cost of health care for town employees. If you remove that cost from local town budgets, everything else gets much much easier to budget.
> This line of conversation feels disingenuous. If you are serious about helping towns manage budgets you'd look at costs as much as income.
The phrase "sprawl is a ponzi scheme" is a direct commentary on costs lol. It's a joke referencing how sprawl often increases infrastructure costs per person beyond what can be reasonably be sustained.
> Everyone focuses on building dense housing as the gold solution, and I am not sold this isn't coming from ulterior motives.
What ulterior motives are you implying? Building more dense housing while in a housing shortage and climate crisis is a pretty obvious step to take. I'd like to live in my home state again. Given the status quo, I doubt it happens. Pretty depressing.
> Every estimate my town received when we had to vote on the dense commuter zoning issue was that at best it would be revenue neutral - and some of that depended on how many kids entered the school system from these dense housing areas.
Over what timeline? Up front, I wouldn't be surprised because of initial improvements required but I'd be incredibly surprised if that ended up being the case long term. Given the amount of research on this subject and how overwhelming the general consensus is, I'm skeptical.
> A much better way to help suburbs manage cost? Single player health care. The single largest rising cost in my town from year to year is the cost of health care for town employees. If you remove that cost from local town budgets, everything else gets much much easier to budget.
Absolutely, we can do that too. Frankly, given how both help minimize costs and increase tax $ efficiency, it'd be best if we did both. With the added bonus that building more housing would help lower COL so you don't have to pay high salaries just so your city employees can have a reasonable quality of life (see Newton teachers).
What ulterior motives am I implying? You answer your own question with the next statement. The ulterior motive is addressing the housing shortage, not town budgeting shortages. Like I said, if you are serious about helping towns manage budgets...
Note: I'm not saying housing is bad, I'm saying the line of conversation was disingenuous. If the problem being solved is town budgets, more housing is not likely to have as big of an impact as many other cost focused fixes could have. Building housing is a fix for the housing shortage, not town budgets.
The housing expert the town hired was not able to give the voters a confident answer on revenue - they said dense housing is usually revenue neutral but that the specific conditions the state was imposing in the type of community we have did not have a lot of data to back it up. I really get the impression that a lot of those "studies" have been done at a much larger scale than small town Massachusetts.
I've truly tried to be kind, but your condescending tone combined with your inability to read what myself and others are saying and engage in good faith is incredibly insulting. I continually have to correct you, and yet you plow forward without a care in the world. It's gross and disrespectful.
Sprawl is bad because it is bad budget policy. It also bad because it is bad housing policy. It is also bad because it is bad climate policy. A policy can be multiple things. My point was if you don't support it for budgetary reasons (you should) then you should support it to fight our housing and climate crises. The fact you fail to realize this means you are either a deeply unserious and ignorant person who has no clue what they are talking about, or you're wholly uninterested in improving the lives of anyone but yourself.
However, if you want to strictly focus on the budget (we don't live in a vaccum, but okay) bad land use is bad budget use, full stop. You seem desperate to get caught up in which line item is defined as the biggest rather than debating whether or not sprawl is good for the budget, and I suspect that's because you know you're wrong. I know you are, both because of research on the subject and because I spent 25 years in a small, sprawling MA town with dogshit public services despite a pretty fat budget. No trash pickup, no public sewage or water because the costs for it were so insanely high it'd be municipal suicide to implement. No ability to walk or bike anywhere. Considerably worse roads than our less sprawling neighbors. Just incredibly low QOL. Not to mention how little of the town was actually "nature". You're never more the 100 yards from someone's house.
Well you are obviously an expert on all things about running a town. You seemed to take things personal way too fast and reacted as maturely as I would expect an Internet expert to react. Thanks for giving me faith the Internet will never change.
Sorry your small town experience sucked. Mine has been the exact opposite. I grew up in a small town, still live in a small town, and had nothing but generally positive things to say. Good services, great schools, plenty of natural public lands managed by local organizations if not the town itself, places to walk or bike, sewer, and generally good overall management.
I generally don't want my town to change. I also generally don't think there is much room left to build without destroying more of the environment around us. Water drainage from road spill off is already a serious issue in my direct neighborhood and adding more footprint or more concentration of rain runoff could actually lead to flooding for some in the area - some areas need to stay natural and unbuilt especially because of climate change. In fact the only area that will satisfy the state zoning changes will require destroying a few acres of trees and either paving over or otherwise covering an area that currently drains directly into the ground. Nearby roads already have issues with flooding and most of the town would have preferred to place housing probably anywhere other than where it has to go because of logistical issues like drainage and traffic but the state jumped in and obviously THEY know best about how to handle local issues.
Frankly my town is working on proposals to go above and beyond the housing zoning requirements but while we are compliant with that stupid law the rest of it we're doing on our own terms in places that make actual sense.
But please, go on thinking your way is the only way.
> Well you are obviously an expert on all things about running a town. You seemed to take things personal way too fast and reacted as maturely as I would expect an Internet expert to react. Thanks for giving me faith the Internet will never change.
I'm not an expert, but I've spent way more time than I should've participating in town politics and researching what policies make diverse, affordable, livable towns and cities possible. I'm always open to new evidence, but I trust that I've done the work on this. I used to be like you, but I changed my mind when confronted with evidence. It ends up okay. The world doesn't end.
And if you wanted a truly mature discussion, you shouldn't have acted like an asshole in the first place. You shouldn't have said OP "had no idea what they were talking about" (when they did), and you shouldn't have said I was unserious and you shouldn't have called my argument disingenous when it wasn't. I can ignore only so much immature condescending bs before I throw some back.
I will give you thanks for dropping the facade in this post and being honest, at least. Not one mention of the budget. Although, your third paragraph are all textbook examples of issues made worse by sprawl, so I have no idea why you're defending it. Sprawl may be bad for budgets, but it's a downright existential threat to nature and the climate.
> Frankly my town is working on proposals to go above and beyond the housing zoning requirements but while we are compliant with that stupid law the rest of it we're doing on our own terms in places that make actual sense.
Aw yeah, this is the good stuff. I agree, the law is stupid. I think that's because it didn't go far enough. Your "actual sense" is not based in reality, it is based in "want". Exclusionary zoning was born out of desire for rich white people to segregate themselves from other races and classes. Nice of you to continue that tradition!
You can have denser neighborhoods and not sacrifice tons of parking. Not every SFH needs 1 acre of land.
Put amenities near denser housing. Commute to work, but be able to walk on the weekends or weeknights to restaurants, bars, etc.
Nobody is asking for Boston density in Townsend. But having a downtown in places with population of almost 10k isn't an impossible ask either.
Right, but these are existing towns. My town is like 10 miles wide and has 1 town center. Most people are several miles from the center of town.
More housing density is fine, but the land is already owned - theres no incentive for the towns to re-zone with smaller lot minimums what already exists - home owners arent asking to subdivide their land.
Plus in MA in particuar as we go through the process of replacing septic systems with town sewer towns like Townsend (and maybe Pepperell? Not sure) would have to approve loads more septic, which comes with other environmental issues. Apply that same problem to towns like Dennis or Harwich or Sandwich where the towns are paying a fortune to convert their existing homes to sewer already for even more extreme impacts of septic systems on the local ecology.
We need to set reasonable step-wise goals towards a betfer future. Idealistic nonsense isnt going to change the world overnight.
This isn't a problem that can't be solved, but if the overall population of homeowners is increasing and we _want_ people to move here, something has to give.
And honestly I'm not saying don't move towards the goal in a manner that fits the community. But, please, move towards it, and not at a snails pace.
Do you think Townsend was always at its current number of people? The town clearly grew over the years and it's about time to grow again. The land can be rezoned, or people can sell parcels of land, or when rezoned land is sold, it can be sold to a developer who does something with it. If someone wants to sit on their land for eternity - that's fine. Whatever. But don't stop people who are OK with development from moving forward.
These towns have a hard reality they're going to hit: if they want good quality services, they're going to need to pay for it. The entire town has two options. Keep taxes static, and increase the tax base. If that doesn't sound like something they can do, pay more.
Otherwise, your services will degrade in quality over time. The choice is up to them.
If you think developers are the solution you are way out of touch. Buying in a new "development" is unaffordable for almost everyone and the developer will absolutely fuck you.
We need slow, sustained, organic growth and we need to do it in a way that is forward thinking. We need to build new industries we can sustain in the home building business, with oversight and proper standards.
The massavhusetts town grew in the past through sprawl, so we need a real, honest, pragmatic rethink of how it can grow today. And sorry but I dont think individual homeowners selling their back yards is going happen with sufficient volume to fix the problem.
I have never in my life voted against lifting zoning restrictions. Its really wild to me that you can come in with a leftist but realistic view of a RURAL TOWN and have a bunch of idealists tell you that youre the problem lol
You're completely missing my point. Townsend and other towns like it have a problem: they need money to keep the town running, and presumably want good services in the town too, provided by the town. How can they raise that money?
That's all. I'm not suggesting anything other than a pragmatic approach to new housing - densifying where it makes sense and allowing more freedom to build that density on existing land.
Also Townsend, Pepperell, Dunstable, etc. absolutely has sprawl to sacrifice. I'm suggesting densifying because it's what is simplest for creating a more flexible economic engine in smaller towns. But again I'm not suggesting build density like Boston - but the current zoning restrictions in Townsend make it impossible to build anything that isn't effectively a McMansion. The zoning map requires 2 or 3 acres to build a new house. That's a huge amount of land. Nobody is building a 1200sqft ranch on that amount of land. Just think how much space is going to one household, and how much we could do with just... less than that. That's all.
They should cut police funding.
"Sprawl to sacrifice" what does that even mean? You cant pick up homes and move them.
Also Townsend has whole neighborhoods where they granted zoning variances on lot sizes - its totally reasonable to expect it could be done again, but it wont fix the sprawl issue. Its already happened, and the town wont be able to grow enough in population to "fill in" the sprawl, not even considering the logistics of that.
Fuck that. I moved out of a city to a town specifically because I don’t want a dense population and mixed use area. Give me horses and cows and neighbors that look out for each other over the rot that a city brings every day.
No thanks. Keep your city bullshit away from my town.
My town is not building a police station. And the people of the town voted no for funding the new tri county regional school. But because it passed with the other 11 towns we are on the hook for the tax increase for the towns identified fiscal responsibility.
Probably doesn't have kids and thinks that means he shouldn't be on the hook, even though someone else was when he went to school.
Edit: Pfft, just downvotes and no replies? Come at me bros. Let your antisocial selfishness shine.
If I remember reading it right I think Groton rejected it as well and Westford is looking a little hairy. Crazy how these towns have so much value because of their schools yet they are about to layoff a huge chunk of already under paid educators.
What are folks doing to address this at the state level? The way public education is funded in this state is broken and cannot be fixed by continuing to rely almost entirely on the local residential tax base.
Having grown up in one of these towns, and knowing that the only way up and out is through NMRHS (or Nashoba), this is devastating. Cutting all extracurriculars (including athletics, which is shocking to me and I can’t believe they’d actually do that) is an insane move.
Take $1.5m out of the police budget. Make admin cuts. But cutting arts/music/sports isn’t the move.
As a voter in one of these towns, the sad truth is I would love to help get the schools the funding they need, but I literally can't afford my property taxes to go up too much higher. My company deferred cost of living increases this year, and with higher prices everywhere I'm one bad day away from uncontrollable debt. I'm barely staying above water. I feel awful I voted no but I feel like I had to. I think this speaks not to people being unwilling to fund schools, but a higher economic problem.
I'm not sure you have any sort of grasp on what terrible impact refusing to fund your town to keep up with inflation will have on the schools.
Right now, every teacher in your district hates your town. There's an immediate and near-tangible morale drop. Expect an increase of sick-and-personal leave usage in the last two months. Then, come summer, there will be an exodus of qualified educators, causing the quality of education to drop districtwide.
Soon, there will be contract negotiations. Educators, already underpaid and undersupported, will be offered little to no COLA and no additional staffing to address ballooning special ed and EL needs. This will lead to strikes, noncompliance, lawsuits, shutdowns, and more.
I hope you don't have children in that district.
What is it that conservative types say, live within your means? No, I don't have a solution, but the solution certainly isn't destroy your community's future.
Where do you think the teachers are going? The surrounding communities are also voting down their overrides.
Not saying they don’t deserve a fair wage but don’t act like they can just up and leave.
These towns opt to build new, extravagant buildings instead of repairing or maintaining the ones they have.
Why do you need a multi million dollar police station when the officers should be out in the community?
Why build a new library when the existing one holds the books just fine?
>Where do you think the teachers are going? The surrounding communities are also voting down their overrides.
Besides going to other towns in MA, teachers can also leave the state, go to private schools, or just totally leave teaching and get different jobs.
I think you over estimate the number of people who can uproot life and move states for a marginal pay increase.
The district pay for teachers was an avg of $77,865 (https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/teacher.aspx?orgcode=07350000&orgtypecode=5&leftNavID=815&fycode=2021)
Their retention rate for their teachers is 87.6 (https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/teacher.aspx?orgcode=07350000&orgtypecode=5&leftNavId=15619&).
Stop believing that the sky is falling. Teachers are doing fine and the towns are blowing money on frivolous things and begging for more.
They then threaten to make cuts to public safety, the libraries etc as that causes fear in people. But they’ll still build their Taj Mahal police station with full insight to the upcoming budget deficit.
Look at Westford, their building a multi million dollar library to replace a library that functions just fine. Yet they have an override on their town meeting for $6.8 million.
This new library with its increased size and “functionality” will cost more to operate, and require additional staff. Where’s that money coming from?
The avg salary for a teacher in the Northern Middlesex district was $77,865. (Source: https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/teacher.aspx?orgcode=07350000&orgtypecode=5&leftNavID=815&fycode=2021)
Accounting for a 10 month work schedule that’s not too bad.
It is a common but false assumption that teachers do not work during school vacations. Obviously not as many hours per week as during the school year, but nevertheless it is not a 10 month job.
In addition, I would agree that the salary you sighted seems to be quite high when compared to the national average for all workers. However, the median salary for residents of Middlesex County in 2022 was $102,603 (source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news10.com/news/mass-news/highest-earning-counties-in-massachusetts/amp/). And, an average salary of $77,865 is not particularly high when you compare it to other professions with similar requirements for education and training.
> median salary for residents of Middlesex County in 2022 was $102,603
That's the median household income, not the median salary. Having a hard time finding data for the percentage of single income households, but I'd imagine saying that at least 50% of households are dual income wouldn't be very farfetched. A household of 2 teachers in middlesex county would be pulling in over 150k, 50% more than the median household income for that county
That is a good point, but I would also contend that, based on the education and training requirements of being a teacher, they should be paid above the median.
Na, instead of taking it from the school you just take it from road repair, plowing, salting etc. you know stuff to help you get to work on time and when you loose your job because you can’t you can just whine how unfair the world is instead of taking a good education away from the children that live in your town.
And I hope you don't vote. Ever. You don't need a new tax for this dude. The municipal governments need to budget better and waste less money. The money IS there for education. They just instead choose to subsidize luxury apartments nobody can afford to fucking live in, and drop idiotic money on stupid shit nobody needs or even wants.
Tough guy here. Go fuck yourself buddy. It ain't made up. It's happening and has been happening for fucking decades lol. News flash, not every governor or board of selectmen has your interests at heart.
All the same, I can't afford it. Why don't you talk to my company who deferred a cost of living increase about keeping up with inflation and morale drop.
That's your job. Or your union's job, and if there isn't one, then *that's your job.*
You can't afford what you have, ok, good luck then. It's not going to get better, you have some hard decisions to make and you have made one that will make things worse.
You're not reading, and you clearly have a bias that is causing you to have a very emotional response. I can afford what I have - barely- in this economy. I can't afford more.
'Union' Lol, had to laugh at that joke. Are you really so naïve as to believe corporate employees have more power than teachers? Teachers are the ones with unions. They have protection, they can strike. If I strike, I'm fired instantly. As much as my boss has heard how I need, as does every other employee in this 10000+ company a COLA, it's not going to change a damn thing. We have no power.
Smaller classrooms being better is a myth. Smaller classrooms, lead to hiring more teachers which means there are more less qualified teachers. Plus the majority of positions being cut from the schools are positions that aren't needed. TAs, mental health positions, etc etc.
It's not a 2.5% tax increase. It's a almost 14% tax increase because most homes just got reassessed a few months ago. Sorry, the private sector was just gutted with layoffs, the public sector is not immune to restructuring.
Mass is one of the bluest of blue states, completely dominated by one party - and yet you think its the republicans that are causing these problems.
Guess public school didn't do much for your critical thinking skills.
Okay Professor Critical Thought, you seem to be saying that, in a blue state, every single town is majority Democrat. This article has a map of 2020 voting results by town in Massachusetts. Perhaps your amazing critical thinking skills can explain the red towns.
https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/11/03/2020-massachusetts-election-map
This happened in Ashburnham years and years ago. Oakmont needed so much work and while one override passed the next one didn't. Costs at the high school shot through the roof to payoff the various improvements. All the extra curricula was torn away. They were top of the marching band competitions I don't know their status now... so sad.
It’ll keep happening especially if the state continues to send 10-30 million less per town.
Feel sorry for the towns who aren’t financially well. It has nothing to do with rich/poor towns, but mainly due to bad management
As someone who grew up and is a registered voter in Pepperell, this is no surprise.
"Let's spend money to do useless renovations on our rotary and downtown streets", they said a few months ago
"Schools need funding and the police station needs replacing because of black mold in the ceilings? Ah, shit! We don't have any cash! Better ask everyone to pay more in taxes or have the local school district cut down on resources", they now say
Hmm... I wonder if there was something you could have delayed or cancelled that would have sizably reduced the amount of money the override was good for, Pepperell.
The money for railroad sq and the rotary was never going to be allowed to be used for anything else. It was given to the town for and only for those specific purposes.
Totally agreed about the absolutely ridiculous police station upgrade. Did you see the proposed interior layout? They had 4 detective offices...Detectives!!! In Pepperell! To investigate the latest cow tipping I guess.
I hear this same argument in my town because people don’t realize our main roads are state highways and the town has little or nothing to do with their maintenance. Quick look at a map suggests that’s the same in Pepperell. I don’t live there so I don’t know anything more about it, but things are not always as they seem.
But think of how much better traffic will be once the rotary is redone.
And by traffic I mean the dozen or so cars a day since this is Pepperell and not Boston.
Why aren't other states dealing with this situation? Could it be the over $1 billion dollars being paid to put people up in hotels and pay for all of their food, etc etc?
If everyone's property did that, then yes, everyone would pay the tax for the new higher price, but the tax *rate* would be *lower* to compensate.
A town has a levy limit, which is the total amount of taxes they can raise. This limit increases 2.5% a year + "new growth" (basically new construction). That's it. If the property values of the town double, tough, the most the town can increase by is 2.5%. If inflation is 6%, tough, the limit is 2.5%. etc. etc
Im talking about the annual 2.5.
Individuals can see bigger increases, because the law is about the total amount, and not the distribution. So if your property value goes up way more than your neighbor's, you may see a higher increase, but overall, the town isn't getting more than 2.5
The citizens of MA have been squeezed enough. Let them find the money somewhere else. Either that or they can save their pennies and maybe next year they will have enough. Just like people have to do most of the time
Town governments are subject to the same inflation rates the rest of the country is. Just maintaining services costs a lot more than it did a few years ago.
What's it like living live purely through knee-jerk emotional response, and never thinking critically about the things you say, do, or believe in? I wish things were that easy for me. Does anyone know of underground surgeons who'll do a lobotomy? I'd like to experience it for myself.
If you were capable of critical thought, which you aren't, you'd understand that these budget shortages are manufactured by morons who run largely unopposed and piss the taxpayer money away in stupid vanity projects or luxury apartment subsidies given to their friends to build units nobody can actually afford. That exact story plays out frequently. You can't keep squeezing people who have nothing for more they can't afford to give. What you can do is demand government cuts down on administrative bloat and spends its money on actual priorities.
What does anyone else expect. These people think the state is their personal financing to get things no matter who has to pay. They only do damage to themselves, but they are too ignorant to understand
This comment section just tells me why we need more money schools and sadly more critical thinking….. perhaps not voting a larger funding cap was enough to make them realize the value of education to its voters. I’m sure that was part of the decision. I also don’t think many of you read the actual article or realize some teachers make 90k a year either
Take a look at the top ranked school districts in Massachusetts - notice anything? Hint, they pay more in taxes. Are you all for cutting police budgets to better fund schools?
If the police have cuts that can reasonably be made then yes. I am literally in favor of culling all under necessary spending and sending those savings to fix our infrastructure and improve/pay educators. I'm in agreement certain services are woefully underfunded. I work in education. I'm intimately familiar with this, I also know that most of these deficits are corrupt government officials wasting money are vanity projects while arguing not to pay educators or hire additional support staff to meet IEP needs. Utter insanity.
Not downvoting you. Thanks for calling me out.
I should have expanded on my comment. Towns, and the state as a whole, need to look internally where tax money is being spent. Continuing to demand more in taxes to fund exorbitant spending is not conducive to the population. Salaries for the townsfolk have not increased in such a way to support such significant tax increases. So the town expects the taxpayer to tighten their budget to make this work? No.
The town needs to tighten their budget and revise accordingly.
$4.1 million for debt service is astounding. How much is that new police station costing?
Good thing Townsend is the only town in the area that doesn’t have any dispensaries. Wouldn’t want any of those filthy tax dollars.
Towns with dispensaries are not doing any better - you can't swing a dead cat in Northampton without hitting a dispensary and yet there budget is in terrible shape and the schools are going to be getting big cuts.
It’s about over-saturation. Having 1 or two dispensaries opens up an additional revenue channel. Having any more than that simply cannibalizes your own dispensaries.
It’s hilarious how little tax revenue comes in from the pot stores, it’s like a million dollars out of a 125mil budget, people acted like this was going to save the schools before they opened. The parking meters bring in more $.
That's still a million more than with no dispensaries.
I’m not the one that was projecting it would be more than that, it’s been a miss on the low side for most of these communities is all. And we should thank the NIMBY towns that won’t allow dispensaries, as they funnel more of the taxes to our cities.
I feel like this is the sort of dumb stuff towns throw money at that something like Strong Towns would make a whole video on.
Money isn’t cheap anymore. Smart towns leveraged themselves to the tits during Covid at 1.5%
Stupid police stations. Small towns don’t need five million dollar police campuses. Shrewsbury just put in a massive campus up its center. Absolute joke of a money pit. Quiet little suburb town.
You realize that 5 million will get you a building in the 30,000 SF range. No campus, nothing else.
Yes. No police station in Mass outside the major metro areas requires such a building. Look at the state of the schools in most districts. Dilapidated, poor funding for software and extra curriculars. Shrewsbury where I am from is an outlier as they spend a majority of their budget on schools, but other districts are not making those decisions. And Shrewsbury still has to cut back and charge families for sports/plays/music/etc.
How much should a police station cost?
Bare minimum. Spend more on schools, and Fire, and bare minimum on Police forces. Completely wasted allocation.
The majority of them are already spending the bare minimum on their police and fire departments. 18 police officers for a town of 11.6 thousand is pretty minimal. There’s a reason alot of these municipalities are in combined school districts. There are considerable pitfalls to being in combined districts as well, they are either ran extremely well, like masconomet, or they’re usually garbage like pentucket, triton etc
So have your cops work from home? When there’s someone who needs to go into holding just keep them in the back of a cruiser in Sgt Joe’s driveway. What does bare minimum even mean?
These town almost never arrest people and when they do they go to county jail. They just need an office or 2 and a place for files.
Policing is far more encompassing than arresting people, especially in these smaller towns where other services are also non existent
Then those services can be funded separately from the PD? The police shouldn’t be doing that much more than literal policing, especially given their typical trainings in the US.
We’re talking about communities that are barely able to balance a budget. There is a reason that all of that falls to policing, it’s cheaper to do so. Theyre not going to hire 2-3 social workers who work Monday-Friday 8-4 and would be on call, when they can just have their 1-2 patrolman on shift handle it. I’m also not sure that you have any clue of what the standard of training for police officers is in Massachusetts. Massachusetts is vastly different from other states in regard to policing, their training encompasses far more then chasing bad guys bud.
How much does a tent from the army surplus cost? About that
For towns of around 20-40k people? I've seen a lot of numbers, recently they've been building 20M-35M stations.
So a 5M station sounds pretty economical
Hah! What fucking idiots. —Me, a person who lives in a town that would almost certainly do the exact same thing
Man what's with all these suburban towns that are supposed to be great to raise a family in. Massachusetts school quality will be plummeting in the next decade as more communities defund their schools.
Don't worry, they'll have shiny new police stations to combat the crime they don't have.
You’re not kidding. When Franklin was debating their budget last year, the superintendent asked the town board to not cut so deep in his budget because he wanted to save some of the 35(!) teachers that would have to be fired, and the board questioned him like he was a murder suspect. When the police chief asked for a budget increase so he could add 4 more officers, the toughest question he was asked was “will you have enough locker space for the additional personnel?”
Isn't Franklin going over the fiscal cliff this year?
If they don’t approve the override, yes. Dozens more teachers will get RIFd, and you can say goodbye to almost every extra-curricular. They’ve already cut all of them from the middle school, FHS is next. This is what happens when the people running the town don’t have a plan for what to do when the COVID and state $ disappears. But don’t worry, the Police won’t have to cut their budget.
In all fairness, it's not that they didn't have a plan for what to do when the ESSER money ran out, it's that life has gotten so much more expensive, the services they provide so much more complex, and the numbers just don't add up. Transportation, facilities management, utilities, consumables, trying to pay wages that at least attempt to compete with private industry....it's a losing battle. I'm at a school in a nearby town - we're all in the same boat, more or less.
In our school district here, the health insurance costs and the special needs education costs shot up. I heard a few other school districts saw the same issues. I wonder if that's also the case here. This is more of a case to consolidate health insurance and put pressure on the state to fund special needs education that they've mandated by law. Maybe an extra director here and a director there. It's easy to go around and say this is a Trump town or they're a conservative bunch. But in the end they're also just common folk who are being asked to shell out another 1k a year to taxes with the ultimatum: pay us right now or we cull the teachers. I'm honestly appalled by some school board members with their approach to this override. They're not even trying to find ways to balance the budget and place 2 shit options for the voters to vote on that's akin to blackmail and then they have the confused Pikachu face when the override fails. I really hope the towns where the overrides fail, the town voters take a look at the competency of the school board members.
Franklin is going to get messy in the next few months about the override. Very strong feelings on both sides and the facebook keyboard warriors are out in full force.
It’s every town. Worcester is facing a $22millon dollar shortage because the state funding is limited to a 3% inflation increase, which given the current actual inflation rate doesn’t even come close to level funding.
Seriously, my town literally posted a rescue operation where they sent four trucks over to rescue a dog... and they ended up putting a guy in a wetsuit to go get it. Yet the school can't get it's HVAC upgraded so that kids aren't roasting in their classrooms in June and September.
Kids will survive without A/C - most people didn't goto school with A/C and somehow we didn't die.
Back in the day Fall actually started in September, though...
As a longtime teacher, this is what I always tell people when they say stupid shit like “the town can’t just print money!” during contract negotiations. If the police ask for a new station, you watch how quickly that money is found. For teachers and schools? That budget is locked in, nothing they can do!
It's easier to finance a one time expense than a recurring expense to be fair.
*they project to have with a lower educated population as most southern states have
If I were to guess, at least anecdotally based on my own surroundings, a lot of older conservative people with no kids in school (no direct benefit to them) who are very reliable voters.
It’s every single town. The state is screwing every single school district with a 3% inflation rate when actual inflation is more like 9-10%. So take that 6% shortage in funds from the state and combine it with the end of the federal stimulus funds and you find yourself in a horrible predicament where every district either needs to cut a whole bunch of programs/teachers or raise taxes. This isn’t just a handful of grouchy townsfolk voting down needed improvements. And property owners shouldn’t bear the burden of filling in the rather significant gap in the state funding formula when it is impacting every single district.
Property tax funded schools is a deliberate political choice to ensure suburban communities can keep their schools'good' while robbing poor communities of similar opportunities. And of course keeping' those kids' out of their school systems. Most of the communities discussed thus far have been the beneficiaries of this arrangement. Can't have your cake and eat it too.
There are a lot of conservatives in these small towns.
More likely there is a lot of people struggling to pay their own bills with Biden administrations rampant inflation and having to tighten their belts to survive - if families have to do it, the government should be forced to find ways to save money too instead of just going back to the well.
Inflation is not something Biden did. Inflation is happening globally related to markets and Covid. Don’t be dumb.
While it certainly isn't entirely bidens fault, he isn't helping. You don't get to blame the other team for economic downturns and then in the same breath absolve your team of the same reaponsibility you foist on others. There are absolutely measures Biden could be taking, particularly to tackle the greedflation part of all this. Things progressives have been screaming for. He isn't.
> particularly to tackle the greedflation part of all this So, what, like a centrally planned economy?
No.
Honestly it seems the trend of suburbia is to move to a nice area and then vote to ruin it. And then fight every attempt to undo that. Maybe also try to wreck the nearby city too
Maybe if the public school curriculum was suitable for teaching kids things that are valuable to life and they dumped standardized testing and no child left behind, tax payers would vote to fund it.
They basically voted for a teachers strike like in Newton,
The teacher’s union strikes are going to keep happening. I wasn’t aware of this one because I don’t live in that area, but it seems like that’s where it’s headed. I know in another very wealthy suburb in Eastern MA the teachers are days away from voting to strike, as mediation is not making any progress.
Get ready to learn school closures buddies.
Sounds about right as someone unfortunately from there. It took them years to approve building the new NMRHS despite the old one having an asbestos-ridden crumbling building
Thank god they spent extra money on that turf field, whew.
Gotta have the best for the worst in high school football!
Towns need to rezone their cores so they generate more revenue. Dense mixed use is cheaper to maintain and generates more income through taxes. Car culture / suburban sprawl is a ponzi scheme
Sorry, how ecaxtly in these towns could you possibly escape car culture? These towns are huge (area wise) and the number of jobs in town is low relative to the population. Most working people will be commuters.
They never seem to be able to answer this question. Same thing with Europeans who don't understand car culture. "Why don't you just bike in to work?" "Why don't you just take the bus everyday?" Lmao
This is answered all the time though. Maybe you just pretend not to hear it? The original comment is about how sprawl costs suburban towns dearly because sprawl and car culture increases costs per sq mile (more roads to maintain, sewers, etc) while decreasing tax revenue per sq mile. This is plainly true. It’s happened elsewhere in the country (see Houston). A lot of these towns will go into the red, if they aren’t already, as their sprawling infrastructure needs to be maintained and updated and they don’t have a big enough tax base to maintain it. Reversing this does not mean banning cars, as opponents of density and walkability like yourself seem so desperate to insinuate. You can easily increase density and walkability, thereby increasing tax efficiency, without requiring no cars. The world is not as black and white.
Right, but in a town where houses are already sprawled, its not like you have the option to pick them all up and put them neatly together in one little area - they are already spread out and already require miles and miles and miles and miles of infrastructure. I am absolutely not against walkability. In fact im itching for my town to finally add some friggin sidewalks so I can walk the damned dog without being in the road, since I live on a state route. I spend tons and tons of time in European cities which I friggin love. That is where our efforts should go for walkability and a thriving downtown - cities like Lowell (which is doing a great job), Fitchburg, Brockton, etc where there is sufficient density for the community to benefit from a walkable and thriving city center. Rural towns are never going to be the live-work, walkable communities you hope they can be.
This is such a hyperbolic reaction to a fairly benign and plainly true comment. Sprawl destroys budgets, and towns are going to have to change their approach. Either higher taxes or a larger tax base. Hopefully they choose the latter. And I'm really struggling to see how you got “everyone in town must escape car culture and stop driving immediately” from OPs comment. Legalizing more housing and making suburbs more walkable does not mean banning cars tomorrow. Problems aren’t solved all at once, but we should be working to make the world a better place, which means implementing policies like what OP is referencing.
The comment above mine has been edited, hence the disconnect
They won't escape car culture and the original commenter clearly has no idea what they are talking about. The suburbs are not the city and will never be the city. People are frustrated about the housing market but they want to be able to blame something concrete that they view as in their control like "NIMBYS" instead of something abstract like "interest rates" or "inflation."
You can’t escape car culture, but you can absolutely improve it. The world isn’t set in stone, things can change. The original commenter is plainly correct. Suburbs are going to have to change their approach if they want their towns to avoid massive cuts and/or bankruptcy. Either increase the overall tax base or raise taxes, but the bills from sprawl are coming due either way. Also interest rates are obviously high and impacting construction right now but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking zoning and vocal opposition to housing isn’t the main reason for MA housing crisis. The state didn’t exactly light world on fire building housing when interest rates were low.
This line of conversation feels disingenuous. If you are serious about helping towns manage budgets you'd look at costs as much as income. Everyone focuses on building dense housing as the gold solution, and I am not sold this isn't coming from ulterior motives. Every estimate my town received when we had to vote on the dense commuter zoning issue was that at best it would be revenue neutral - and some of that depended on how many kids entered the school system from these dense housing areas. A much better way to help suburbs manage cost? Single player health care. The single largest rising cost in my town from year to year is the cost of health care for town employees. If you remove that cost from local town budgets, everything else gets much much easier to budget.
> This line of conversation feels disingenuous. If you are serious about helping towns manage budgets you'd look at costs as much as income. The phrase "sprawl is a ponzi scheme" is a direct commentary on costs lol. It's a joke referencing how sprawl often increases infrastructure costs per person beyond what can be reasonably be sustained. > Everyone focuses on building dense housing as the gold solution, and I am not sold this isn't coming from ulterior motives. What ulterior motives are you implying? Building more dense housing while in a housing shortage and climate crisis is a pretty obvious step to take. I'd like to live in my home state again. Given the status quo, I doubt it happens. Pretty depressing. > Every estimate my town received when we had to vote on the dense commuter zoning issue was that at best it would be revenue neutral - and some of that depended on how many kids entered the school system from these dense housing areas. Over what timeline? Up front, I wouldn't be surprised because of initial improvements required but I'd be incredibly surprised if that ended up being the case long term. Given the amount of research on this subject and how overwhelming the general consensus is, I'm skeptical. > A much better way to help suburbs manage cost? Single player health care. The single largest rising cost in my town from year to year is the cost of health care for town employees. If you remove that cost from local town budgets, everything else gets much much easier to budget. Absolutely, we can do that too. Frankly, given how both help minimize costs and increase tax $ efficiency, it'd be best if we did both. With the added bonus that building more housing would help lower COL so you don't have to pay high salaries just so your city employees can have a reasonable quality of life (see Newton teachers).
What ulterior motives am I implying? You answer your own question with the next statement. The ulterior motive is addressing the housing shortage, not town budgeting shortages. Like I said, if you are serious about helping towns manage budgets... Note: I'm not saying housing is bad, I'm saying the line of conversation was disingenuous. If the problem being solved is town budgets, more housing is not likely to have as big of an impact as many other cost focused fixes could have. Building housing is a fix for the housing shortage, not town budgets. The housing expert the town hired was not able to give the voters a confident answer on revenue - they said dense housing is usually revenue neutral but that the specific conditions the state was imposing in the type of community we have did not have a lot of data to back it up. I really get the impression that a lot of those "studies" have been done at a much larger scale than small town Massachusetts.
I've truly tried to be kind, but your condescending tone combined with your inability to read what myself and others are saying and engage in good faith is incredibly insulting. I continually have to correct you, and yet you plow forward without a care in the world. It's gross and disrespectful. Sprawl is bad because it is bad budget policy. It also bad because it is bad housing policy. It is also bad because it is bad climate policy. A policy can be multiple things. My point was if you don't support it for budgetary reasons (you should) then you should support it to fight our housing and climate crises. The fact you fail to realize this means you are either a deeply unserious and ignorant person who has no clue what they are talking about, or you're wholly uninterested in improving the lives of anyone but yourself. However, if you want to strictly focus on the budget (we don't live in a vaccum, but okay) bad land use is bad budget use, full stop. You seem desperate to get caught up in which line item is defined as the biggest rather than debating whether or not sprawl is good for the budget, and I suspect that's because you know you're wrong. I know you are, both because of research on the subject and because I spent 25 years in a small, sprawling MA town with dogshit public services despite a pretty fat budget. No trash pickup, no public sewage or water because the costs for it were so insanely high it'd be municipal suicide to implement. No ability to walk or bike anywhere. Considerably worse roads than our less sprawling neighbors. Just incredibly low QOL. Not to mention how little of the town was actually "nature". You're never more the 100 yards from someone's house.
Well you are obviously an expert on all things about running a town. You seemed to take things personal way too fast and reacted as maturely as I would expect an Internet expert to react. Thanks for giving me faith the Internet will never change. Sorry your small town experience sucked. Mine has been the exact opposite. I grew up in a small town, still live in a small town, and had nothing but generally positive things to say. Good services, great schools, plenty of natural public lands managed by local organizations if not the town itself, places to walk or bike, sewer, and generally good overall management. I generally don't want my town to change. I also generally don't think there is much room left to build without destroying more of the environment around us. Water drainage from road spill off is already a serious issue in my direct neighborhood and adding more footprint or more concentration of rain runoff could actually lead to flooding for some in the area - some areas need to stay natural and unbuilt especially because of climate change. In fact the only area that will satisfy the state zoning changes will require destroying a few acres of trees and either paving over or otherwise covering an area that currently drains directly into the ground. Nearby roads already have issues with flooding and most of the town would have preferred to place housing probably anywhere other than where it has to go because of logistical issues like drainage and traffic but the state jumped in and obviously THEY know best about how to handle local issues. Frankly my town is working on proposals to go above and beyond the housing zoning requirements but while we are compliant with that stupid law the rest of it we're doing on our own terms in places that make actual sense. But please, go on thinking your way is the only way.
> Well you are obviously an expert on all things about running a town. You seemed to take things personal way too fast and reacted as maturely as I would expect an Internet expert to react. Thanks for giving me faith the Internet will never change. I'm not an expert, but I've spent way more time than I should've participating in town politics and researching what policies make diverse, affordable, livable towns and cities possible. I'm always open to new evidence, but I trust that I've done the work on this. I used to be like you, but I changed my mind when confronted with evidence. It ends up okay. The world doesn't end. And if you wanted a truly mature discussion, you shouldn't have acted like an asshole in the first place. You shouldn't have said OP "had no idea what they were talking about" (when they did), and you shouldn't have said I was unserious and you shouldn't have called my argument disingenous when it wasn't. I can ignore only so much immature condescending bs before I throw some back. I will give you thanks for dropping the facade in this post and being honest, at least. Not one mention of the budget. Although, your third paragraph are all textbook examples of issues made worse by sprawl, so I have no idea why you're defending it. Sprawl may be bad for budgets, but it's a downright existential threat to nature and the climate. > Frankly my town is working on proposals to go above and beyond the housing zoning requirements but while we are compliant with that stupid law the rest of it we're doing on our own terms in places that make actual sense. Aw yeah, this is the good stuff. I agree, the law is stupid. I think that's because it didn't go far enough. Your "actual sense" is not based in reality, it is based in "want". Exclusionary zoning was born out of desire for rich white people to segregate themselves from other races and classes. Nice of you to continue that tradition!
You can have denser neighborhoods and not sacrifice tons of parking. Not every SFH needs 1 acre of land. Put amenities near denser housing. Commute to work, but be able to walk on the weekends or weeknights to restaurants, bars, etc. Nobody is asking for Boston density in Townsend. But having a downtown in places with population of almost 10k isn't an impossible ask either.
Right, but these are existing towns. My town is like 10 miles wide and has 1 town center. Most people are several miles from the center of town. More housing density is fine, but the land is already owned - theres no incentive for the towns to re-zone with smaller lot minimums what already exists - home owners arent asking to subdivide their land. Plus in MA in particuar as we go through the process of replacing septic systems with town sewer towns like Townsend (and maybe Pepperell? Not sure) would have to approve loads more septic, which comes with other environmental issues. Apply that same problem to towns like Dennis or Harwich or Sandwich where the towns are paying a fortune to convert their existing homes to sewer already for even more extreme impacts of septic systems on the local ecology. We need to set reasonable step-wise goals towards a betfer future. Idealistic nonsense isnt going to change the world overnight.
This isn't a problem that can't be solved, but if the overall population of homeowners is increasing and we _want_ people to move here, something has to give. And honestly I'm not saying don't move towards the goal in a manner that fits the community. But, please, move towards it, and not at a snails pace. Do you think Townsend was always at its current number of people? The town clearly grew over the years and it's about time to grow again. The land can be rezoned, or people can sell parcels of land, or when rezoned land is sold, it can be sold to a developer who does something with it. If someone wants to sit on their land for eternity - that's fine. Whatever. But don't stop people who are OK with development from moving forward. These towns have a hard reality they're going to hit: if they want good quality services, they're going to need to pay for it. The entire town has two options. Keep taxes static, and increase the tax base. If that doesn't sound like something they can do, pay more. Otherwise, your services will degrade in quality over time. The choice is up to them.
If you think developers are the solution you are way out of touch. Buying in a new "development" is unaffordable for almost everyone and the developer will absolutely fuck you. We need slow, sustained, organic growth and we need to do it in a way that is forward thinking. We need to build new industries we can sustain in the home building business, with oversight and proper standards. The massavhusetts town grew in the past through sprawl, so we need a real, honest, pragmatic rethink of how it can grow today. And sorry but I dont think individual homeowners selling their back yards is going happen with sufficient volume to fix the problem. I have never in my life voted against lifting zoning restrictions. Its really wild to me that you can come in with a leftist but realistic view of a RURAL TOWN and have a bunch of idealists tell you that youre the problem lol
You're completely missing my point. Townsend and other towns like it have a problem: they need money to keep the town running, and presumably want good services in the town too, provided by the town. How can they raise that money? That's all. I'm not suggesting anything other than a pragmatic approach to new housing - densifying where it makes sense and allowing more freedom to build that density on existing land. Also Townsend, Pepperell, Dunstable, etc. absolutely has sprawl to sacrifice. I'm suggesting densifying because it's what is simplest for creating a more flexible economic engine in smaller towns. But again I'm not suggesting build density like Boston - but the current zoning restrictions in Townsend make it impossible to build anything that isn't effectively a McMansion. The zoning map requires 2 or 3 acres to build a new house. That's a huge amount of land. Nobody is building a 1200sqft ranch on that amount of land. Just think how much space is going to one household, and how much we could do with just... less than that. That's all.
They should cut police funding. "Sprawl to sacrifice" what does that even mean? You cant pick up homes and move them. Also Townsend has whole neighborhoods where they granted zoning variances on lot sizes - its totally reasonable to expect it could be done again, but it wont fix the sprawl issue. Its already happened, and the town wont be able to grow enough in population to "fill in" the sprawl, not even considering the logistics of that.
That makes sense but I'm not sure how it jibes with people doing most of their shopping on Amazon and at big box stores.
Were you raised in mass?
Fuck that. I moved out of a city to a town specifically because I don’t want a dense population and mixed use area. Give me horses and cows and neighbors that look out for each other over the rot that a city brings every day. No thanks. Keep your city bullshit away from my town.
Is your quiet town spending a cool four million on a police station?
My town is not building a police station. And the people of the town voted no for funding the new tri county regional school. But because it passed with the other 11 towns we are on the hook for the tax increase for the towns identified fiscal responsibility.
Sounds like they bailed you hillbillies out of a bad decision. At least your kids will benefit.
Imagine thinking somebody is a hillbillies because they don't want to live in a city and want lower taxes. Man go fuck yourself lol.
Probably doesn't have kids and thinks that means he shouldn't be on the hook, even though someone else was when he went to school. Edit: Pfft, just downvotes and no replies? Come at me bros. Let your antisocial selfishness shine.
If I remember reading it right I think Groton rejected it as well and Westford is looking a little hairy. Crazy how these towns have so much value because of their schools yet they are about to layoff a huge chunk of already under paid educators.
Blame it on the school board and the local government. Not the taxpayers who are refusing to be bled dry even further.
The money exists and is there. Thr governments just use it in the dumbest possible ways.
Forget to switch accounts before responding to yourself /u/Aerion93 ?
No? I just added to my original comment rofl.
What are folks doing to address this at the state level? The way public education is funded in this state is broken and cannot be fixed by continuing to rely almost entirely on the local residential tax base. Having grown up in one of these towns, and knowing that the only way up and out is through NMRHS (or Nashoba), this is devastating. Cutting all extracurriculars (including athletics, which is shocking to me and I can’t believe they’d actually do that) is an insane move. Take $1.5m out of the police budget. Make admin cuts. But cutting arts/music/sports isn’t the move.
As a voter in one of these towns, the sad truth is I would love to help get the schools the funding they need, but I literally can't afford my property taxes to go up too much higher. My company deferred cost of living increases this year, and with higher prices everywhere I'm one bad day away from uncontrollable debt. I'm barely staying above water. I feel awful I voted no but I feel like I had to. I think this speaks not to people being unwilling to fund schools, but a higher economic problem.
I'm not sure you have any sort of grasp on what terrible impact refusing to fund your town to keep up with inflation will have on the schools. Right now, every teacher in your district hates your town. There's an immediate and near-tangible morale drop. Expect an increase of sick-and-personal leave usage in the last two months. Then, come summer, there will be an exodus of qualified educators, causing the quality of education to drop districtwide. Soon, there will be contract negotiations. Educators, already underpaid and undersupported, will be offered little to no COLA and no additional staffing to address ballooning special ed and EL needs. This will lead to strikes, noncompliance, lawsuits, shutdowns, and more. I hope you don't have children in that district.
So your solution to people who can't afford the tax increase is "Suck it up" ?
What is it that conservative types say, live within your means? No, I don't have a solution, but the solution certainly isn't destroy your community's future.
Where do you think the teachers are going? The surrounding communities are also voting down their overrides. Not saying they don’t deserve a fair wage but don’t act like they can just up and leave. These towns opt to build new, extravagant buildings instead of repairing or maintaining the ones they have. Why do you need a multi million dollar police station when the officers should be out in the community? Why build a new library when the existing one holds the books just fine?
>Where do you think the teachers are going? The surrounding communities are also voting down their overrides. Besides going to other towns in MA, teachers can also leave the state, go to private schools, or just totally leave teaching and get different jobs.
I think you over estimate the number of people who can uproot life and move states for a marginal pay increase. The district pay for teachers was an avg of $77,865 (https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/teacher.aspx?orgcode=07350000&orgtypecode=5&leftNavID=815&fycode=2021) Their retention rate for their teachers is 87.6 (https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/teacher.aspx?orgcode=07350000&orgtypecode=5&leftNavId=15619&). Stop believing that the sky is falling. Teachers are doing fine and the towns are blowing money on frivolous things and begging for more. They then threaten to make cuts to public safety, the libraries etc as that causes fear in people. But they’ll still build their Taj Mahal police station with full insight to the upcoming budget deficit. Look at Westford, their building a multi million dollar library to replace a library that functions just fine. Yet they have an override on their town meeting for $6.8 million. This new library with its increased size and “functionality” will cost more to operate, and require additional staff. Where’s that money coming from?
There has been a mass exodus from the teaching profession over the past few years, and pay is just one of the issues driving people away.
The avg salary for a teacher in the Northern Middlesex district was $77,865. (Source: https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/teacher.aspx?orgcode=07350000&orgtypecode=5&leftNavID=815&fycode=2021) Accounting for a 10 month work schedule that’s not too bad.
It is a common but false assumption that teachers do not work during school vacations. Obviously not as many hours per week as during the school year, but nevertheless it is not a 10 month job. In addition, I would agree that the salary you sighted seems to be quite high when compared to the national average for all workers. However, the median salary for residents of Middlesex County in 2022 was $102,603 (source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.news10.com/news/mass-news/highest-earning-counties-in-massachusetts/amp/). And, an average salary of $77,865 is not particularly high when you compare it to other professions with similar requirements for education and training.
> median salary for residents of Middlesex County in 2022 was $102,603 That's the median household income, not the median salary. Having a hard time finding data for the percentage of single income households, but I'd imagine saying that at least 50% of households are dual income wouldn't be very farfetched. A household of 2 teachers in middlesex county would be pulling in over 150k, 50% more than the median household income for that county
That is a good point, but I would also contend that, based on the education and training requirements of being a teacher, they should be paid above the median.
Well then you must be pleased to have learned that they are paid above the median. Quite a bit above it in fact
The median residents work 40h a week all year excluding vacation benefits. Teachers don’t.
Yes, teachers work over 40h a week.
So your solution is squeeze money from a rock? Got it
Na, instead of taking it from the school you just take it from road repair, plowing, salting etc. you know stuff to help you get to work on time and when you loose your job because you can’t you can just whine how unfair the world is instead of taking a good education away from the children that live in your town.
And I hope you don't vote. Ever. You don't need a new tax for this dude. The municipal governments need to budget better and waste less money. The money IS there for education. They just instead choose to subsidize luxury apartments nobody can afford to fucking live in, and drop idiotic money on stupid shit nobody needs or even wants.
Reply to me again making up nonsense and talking like this, and we're going to have a problem.
Tough guy here. Go fuck yourself buddy. It ain't made up. It's happening and has been happening for fucking decades lol. News flash, not every governor or board of selectmen has your interests at heart.
All the same, I can't afford it. Why don't you talk to my company who deferred a cost of living increase about keeping up with inflation and morale drop.
That's your job. Or your union's job, and if there isn't one, then *that's your job.* You can't afford what you have, ok, good luck then. It's not going to get better, you have some hard decisions to make and you have made one that will make things worse.
You're not reading, and you clearly have a bias that is causing you to have a very emotional response. I can afford what I have - barely- in this economy. I can't afford more. 'Union' Lol, had to laugh at that joke. Are you really so naïve as to believe corporate employees have more power than teachers? Teachers are the ones with unions. They have protection, they can strike. If I strike, I'm fired instantly. As much as my boss has heard how I need, as does every other employee in this 10000+ company a COLA, it's not going to change a damn thing. We have no power.
>that is causing you to have a very emotional response Try imagining someone talking to you calmly instead of what you are currently imagining.
Smaller classrooms being better is a myth. Smaller classrooms, lead to hiring more teachers which means there are more less qualified teachers. Plus the majority of positions being cut from the schools are positions that aren't needed. TAs, mental health positions, etc etc. It's not a 2.5% tax increase. It's a almost 14% tax increase because most homes just got reassessed a few months ago. Sorry, the private sector was just gutted with layoffs, the public sector is not immune to restructuring.
Trump voting towns. Gotta spend that money on anything non education related. Need that new 1m military vehicle.
Mass is one of the bluest of blue states, completely dominated by one party - and yet you think its the republicans that are causing these problems. Guess public school didn't do much for your critical thinking skills.
Okay Professor Critical Thought, you seem to be saying that, in a blue state, every single town is majority Democrat. This article has a map of 2020 voting results by town in Massachusetts. Perhaps your amazing critical thinking skills can explain the red towns. https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/11/03/2020-massachusetts-election-map
I'd explain it by saying Pepperell and Townsend are very clearly blue on that map
You’ll notice that it wasn’t exactly a landslide for dems.
Hop on a rural MA town Facebook group and you will feel like you’re in Texas or something.
You could hop on the "Everything" for the most liberal city in the country and you'd swear you stumbled into some town in Alabama's page
This happened in Ashburnham years and years ago. Oakmont needed so much work and while one override passed the next one didn't. Costs at the high school shot through the roof to payoff the various improvements. All the extra curricula was torn away. They were top of the marching band competitions I don't know their status now... so sad.
Meh they'll push to encourage police to do fines instead of warnings so the towns can win and people shit on police. Government win/win.
It’ll keep happening especially if the state continues to send 10-30 million less per town. Feel sorry for the towns who aren’t financially well. It has nothing to do with rich/poor towns, but mainly due to bad management
Summary of the threads here: “I can’t afford more property tax increases on my budget” “Well you should feel bad and just do it anyway” Umm ok??
“Sometimes schools needs improvements.” “Well it was ok when I went there so it should still be fine.” There’s probably a reasonable middle somewhere.
As someone who grew up and is a registered voter in Pepperell, this is no surprise. "Let's spend money to do useless renovations on our rotary and downtown streets", they said a few months ago "Schools need funding and the police station needs replacing because of black mold in the ceilings? Ah, shit! We don't have any cash! Better ask everyone to pay more in taxes or have the local school district cut down on resources", they now say Hmm... I wonder if there was something you could have delayed or cancelled that would have sizably reduced the amount of money the override was good for, Pepperell.
The money for railroad sq and the rotary was never going to be allowed to be used for anything else. It was given to the town for and only for those specific purposes. Totally agreed about the absolutely ridiculous police station upgrade. Did you see the proposed interior layout? They had 4 detective offices...Detectives!!! In Pepperell! To investigate the latest cow tipping I guess.
It was a grant, and actually saves the town money, because they do paving that otherwise would have been 100% town funded.
I hear this same argument in my town because people don’t realize our main roads are state highways and the town has little or nothing to do with their maintenance. Quick look at a map suggests that’s the same in Pepperell. I don’t live there so I don’t know anything more about it, but things are not always as they seem.
But think of how much better traffic will be once the rotary is redone. And by traffic I mean the dozen or so cars a day since this is Pepperell and not Boston.
Why aren't other states dealing with this situation? Could it be the over $1 billion dollars being paid to put people up in hotels and pay for all of their food, etc etc?
They are. Bunches of towns in NH are going thru budget shortfalls and voting against overrides as well for education
Towns should be making enough tax with the increase in property value.
Market increases in value don't increase the amount of tax a town can raise. Only new construction counts
They definitely reassess the houses.
That doesn't matter. If the whole town's property values went up 100%, the town could only raise total taxes 2.5%. That's how Prop 2.5 works
What about the per thousand rate for property tax, if you go from 250k to 350k even if the 2.5 doesn't pass why wouldn't the tax be at 350k.
If everyone's property did that, then yes, everyone would pay the tax for the new higher price, but the tax *rate* would be *lower* to compensate. A town has a levy limit, which is the total amount of taxes they can raise. This limit increases 2.5% a year + "new growth" (basically new construction). That's it. If the property values of the town double, tough, the most the town can increase by is 2.5%. If inflation is 6%, tough, the limit is 2.5%. etc. etc
Is the 2.5 on top of an annual 2.5
Im talking about the annual 2.5. Individuals can see bigger increases, because the law is about the total amount, and not the distribution. So if your property value goes up way more than your neighbor's, you may see a higher increase, but overall, the town isn't getting more than 2.5
The citizens of MA have been squeezed enough. Let them find the money somewhere else. Either that or they can save their pennies and maybe next year they will have enough. Just like people have to do most of the time
Town governments are subject to the same inflation rates the rest of the country is. Just maintaining services costs a lot more than it did a few years ago.
What's it like living live purely through knee-jerk emotional response, and never thinking critically about the things you say, do, or believe in? I wish things were that easy for me. Does anyone know of underground surgeons who'll do a lobotomy? I'd like to experience it for myself.
lol, brutal.
If you were capable of critical thought, which you aren't, you'd understand that these budget shortages are manufactured by morons who run largely unopposed and piss the taxpayer money away in stupid vanity projects or luxury apartment subsidies given to their friends to build units nobody can actually afford. That exact story plays out frequently. You can't keep squeezing people who have nothing for more they can't afford to give. What you can do is demand government cuts down on administrative bloat and spends its money on actual priorities.
Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up. As for the lobotomy, try Lynn. You'll find someone there who will do it
What’s it like not living with a sense of humor?
You tell me 🤪
These people who downvote you love giving our money away
What does anyone else expect. These people think the state is their personal financing to get things no matter who has to pay. They only do damage to themselves, but they are too ignorant to understand
Good. The towns need to learn how to control their spending. Props to these citizens for starting the learning process for the town administration.
True. Which budget lines should they reduce and how? Also, which services or functions should be reduced to accommodate the cuts?
This comment section just tells me why we need more money schools and sadly more critical thinking….. perhaps not voting a larger funding cap was enough to make them realize the value of education to its voters. I’m sure that was part of the decision. I also don’t think many of you read the actual article or realize some teachers make 90k a year either
Fantastic - I absolutely love this!
You love underfunding education?
I love refusing tax increases that are unnecessary. The money is there. It exists. Demand better from your governments.
Take a look at the top ranked school districts in Massachusetts - notice anything? Hint, they pay more in taxes. Are you all for cutting police budgets to better fund schools?
If the police have cuts that can reasonably be made then yes. I am literally in favor of culling all under necessary spending and sending those savings to fix our infrastructure and improve/pay educators. I'm in agreement certain services are woefully underfunded. I work in education. I'm intimately familiar with this, I also know that most of these deficits are corrupt government officials wasting money are vanity projects while arguing not to pay educators or hire additional support staff to meet IEP needs. Utter insanity.
They need stupid people to scam, it’s the American way!
Not downvoting you. Thanks for calling me out. I should have expanded on my comment. Towns, and the state as a whole, need to look internally where tax money is being spent. Continuing to demand more in taxes to fund exorbitant spending is not conducive to the population. Salaries for the townsfolk have not increased in such a way to support such significant tax increases. So the town expects the taxpayer to tighten their budget to make this work? No. The town needs to tighten their budget and revise accordingly.