North Adams Prepping For Override

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Mayor Richard Alcombright has canceled all contract negotiations and is preparing a ballot question for a Proposition 2 1/2 override.

Alcombright said deals had been struck with some of the city's seven public unions but all would be put on hold until the budget is dealt with. The city is facing a budget gap of $1.2 million for fiscal 2012, caused in large part by falling state aid and rising costs.

An override would add about $237 a year to the tax bill on the average home, which in North Adams is assessed at $138,500.

"Unless we can really find some different way to attack this, I will probably call a special council meeting to bring in a ballot question for an override," the mayor told the Finance Committee on Thursday.

He said he planned to present a ballot question to the committee at this meeting ahead of next week's City Council meeting but was "looking into some things that could be interesting." He declined to elaborate but it became apparent as the conversation continued that what the mayor was looking into was selling off some properties.

Committee member David Bond thought putting properties up for sale, even if they didn't find buyers, would send a message that commercial opportunities were available.

However, the mayor said he didn't want to use sales to cover the shortfall since it wouldn't fix the city's finances in the long term. The land sale reserves had already been used to cover three years of budget gaps, but the city still had a deficit and now no cash to cover capital projects.

"If I sold $4 million in real estate today we would still be a $1.2 million in the hole," he said. "We have to fix today so we can work tomorrow."

Even if the properties could be sold and the funds used to pay down the tax rate, said the mayor, the override would still be needed now to balance the budget.

Alcombright and Bond went round and round about the conundrum that cutting services now to save costs would make the city less attractive to the very businesses and people they were hoping could drive growth and expand the tax base.

Resident Wayne Goodell asked the mayor if he had asked the public unions to take a cut in pay or increase their share of insurance costs.

The mayor said he had not discussed pay cuts but had raised the insurance issue. He noted that the Legislature is considering a bill that would loosen restrictions on municipalities negotiating over insurance options. The deal struck with the public unions on insurance last year might delay implementing such a measure until 2013, he said.

Alcombright said nearly a half-million dollars has been reduced from the original deficit of $1.8 million but it was getting difficult to find more places to cut either in the city or schools without affecting services or getting minimal return.

He used the example of laying off four firefighters: The city would be responsible for 28 weeks of unemployment and, since so many firefighters had seniority and five weeks vacation, the amount of overtime to cover shifts would eat away at any savings.

Even so, the mayor said he met last week with city workers to inform them of the possible consequences if the override fails.

City Council President Ronald Boucher said he did not think there was support for an override and asked what Plan B is should it go down. The mayor said once the override is placed on the ballot, he would give presentations on what would happen if it failed — Plan B.

"Numbers don't lie. I stare at these for hours; it's very disheartening," said Alcombright.