Morristown officials are asking voters to fund a 2024 fiscal year budget that is more than 30% larger than the current budget, sparking contentious local debate in the leadup to Town Meeting Day over how municipal spending would get so high.
The proposed $10.1 million budget — which would be the largest in town history — also has some residents worried about their property tax bills. If the budget and all 36 other articles on the ballot pass this year, Morristown’s municipal tax rate is estimated to go up by about 25%. On a $200,000 home — which U.S. Census data shows is near the median home value in town — that would amount to a roughly $525 annual municipal tax increase. Municipal taxes are separate from state education taxes.
Morristown Town Administrator Eric Dodge said the proposed budget increase is driven largely by higher salaries for town employees — including his own.
The selectboard wants town jobs to be as competitive as possible at a time when many other municipalities are vying for workers, Dodge said. “In many conversations, I was hearing, how do we attract new employees? My focus was on retaining the ones I had.”
All Morristown employees are slated to get an 8.7% “cost of living adjustment,” Dodge said, though per the town’s pay grades, some would get larger raises. The fiscal year 2024 budget includes about 25% more money for planning and zoning salaries than the current budget; about 12% more for highway department salaries; and about 10% more for employees in the town clerk and treasurer’s office, among others.
Dodge’s salary is slated to increase 8.7% to about $101,200. He was making about $63,400 when he was hired as interim administrator in April 2021, and some residents have raised concerns about how much his pay has gone up in that time.
“People are thinking this is excessive,” resident Cathy Chafee said at a selectboard meeting last month. “Nobody gets a $40,000 raise in two years. Nobody.” (Dodge has maintained that his salary is comparable to that of other town administrators).
Dodge said this year’s sharp budget increase also makes up for years of budgeting by previous town governments — some of which he was a part of as a selectboard member — that has since proven to be too conservative. Morristown’s population has grown, and with it a need to bolster municipal services, he argued. The town’s fiscal year 2023 budget rose roughly 12.5% from the 2022 budget, though Dodge said before that, the town had long averaged an annual budget increase of less than 4%.
Morristown gained about 200 new residents from 2010 to 2020, according to Census data, and gained roughly 95 additional residents from 2020 to 2021.
Some outspoken opponents of the budget, including selectboard candidate Travis Sabataso, have said they believe single-digit increases are more appropriate for a community the size of Morristown. Sabataso works for Essex Town, where he said he helps develop that community’s annual budget.
“I think the vocal portion of the public — we’re probably talking 20, 30 people, the ones who are coming to the meetings and speaking up and talking on Front Porch Forum — are definitely very upset with the budget,” Sabataso said.
The town also plans to increase its police budget by 20% in fiscal year 2024, which officials said is necessary after a 27% spike in incidents police responded to in 2022 versus 2021. The town has budgeted for an additional full-time police officer, who would work an overnight shift that selectboard members have said is badly needed.
The latest budget also accounts for a new human resources director position and would shift the town’s part-time recreation coordinator to a full-time role, Dodge said.
The budget process has been “extremely contentious” in recent public meetings, selectboard member Don McDowell said at the selectboard meeting last month. A 30.8% increase is “a huge number,” McDowell said, though he told people at the meeting that the selectboard had already trimmed the budget down from what would have been a 40% increase, and wasn’t sure what more could be cut.
“I can tell you without exception, there are tremendous people working for this town and getting stuff done for us,” McDowell said. “They’re earning their salaries.”
Multiple residents at that February meeting said they thought the town could have done a better job putting information about the budgeting process out to residents — a notion that some board members, including chair Bob Beeman, were quick to dispute.
“Whose fault is that?” Beeman said in one heated exchange with town resident Tom Cloutier. “See, everybody’s gotten lazy. We’ve got to serve it to you on a platter. You want me to come to your house and explain it to you at your kitchen table?”
Sabataso said he thinks communication between the town government and residents like himself has become fractured as the vote on the budget gets closer.
“We’ve had people come to meetings almost in tears that they’re going to have to sell their homes,” he said. “It’s not responsible, in my mind, to have put this budget forward.”
Town Meeting Day is March 7. Morristown will not have a floor meeting this year; residents who want to vote in-person can do so at the municipal offices, which are located at 43 Portland St. Polls are set to be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
