Morristown voters this week approved a third rewrite of the town’s budget for the 2024 fiscal year, slimmed down from two previous proposals shot down in March and in June. The vote was 915-699, according to official results posted to the town’s website.
Local debate over the budget had been especially pitched this year as a small but vocal group of residents regularly spoke out against it at public meetings. Multiple officials, including two members of the selectboard, have resigned amid the repeated votes.
In Tuesday’s special election, voters also approved a measure — which stemmed from a resident petition — to adopt a town manager form of government, instead of the current town administrator system. That vote was 1,110-438. Town managers act as chief administrative officers and have direct duties and authority laid out in state law, whereas town administrators are instead largely overseen by a local selectboard.
Don McDowell, vice chair of the Morristown Selectboard, said he was relieved that voters approved the budget this week, not only to stabilize the town’s finances but also so that employees and residents could start to move on after months of debate.
Disputes over the town’s finances even imperiled the Morristown Centennial Library, which faced a dearth of funding and, at one point, appeared to be on the verge of closing its doors.
“We need to start the healing process. There’s been a lot said, and of a lot of emotions expressed,” McDowell said. “And it’s going to take a little while. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
The budget that passed this week totaled about $9.2 million, a roughly 10% increase over the town’s 2023 fiscal year budget. It marked a slight decrease from the $9.4 million proposal voters rejected in June, and a much larger cut from the $10.1 million proposed on Town Meeting Day. Voters rejected the March proposal 1,441-391.
Of the $9.2 million, about $7.3 million is set to be raised via property taxes — also less than the $8.7 million that was set to come from taxes in the first proposal. McDowell said that reduction in the tax burden likely swayed more voters into the “yes” column.
Tina Sweet, Morristown’s finance director, said in an email Friday that more information about the budget’s impact on taxes would be available in the coming days.
Compared to its first draft, Morristown’s third budget reduced the amount earmarked for the highway department by about $520,000 and the amount budgeted for its emergency services providers by about $65,000, according to a comparison sheet prepared by town officials. The selectboard has also drawn on some of the town’s reserve funds.
The third budget maintained funding to hire a new police officer to provide coverage on the police department’s overnight shift, McDowell noted. It also maintained one of the expenses that drew the most scrutiny this year: roughly 9% cost-of-living increases for nonunionized town employees, as well as municipal employees who are in a union.
The town’s pay policy requires the same cost-of-living increases for both unionized and nonunion workers. McDowell said those raises are tied to the federal government’s annual adjustment to Social Security benefits, which saw larger increases in 2022 and 2023 than they had for years due to high inflation. McDowell said that, in response to public concerns, the selectboard is now weighing whether the pay policy should be changed.
“It creates a lot of oscillations in the budget system, lots of ebbs and flows,” he said. “The selectboard is very much in favor of a discussion around this pay policy — and likely not using (the federal cost-of-living adjustment) in the future.”
Still, the third budget did not trim enough fat for some residents — and for at least one selectboard member. Laura Streets, who was elected to the board on Town Meeting Day, was the lone member who voted against sending the third budget to voters.
“It’s not sustainable,” Streets said Thursday of the spending increase in the 2024 budget. She said she heard from one woman in town this week who plans to sell her home because she won’t be able to afford the resulting higher taxes. Streets said that several other residents are considering doing the same. “It’s tragic,” she said. “It makes me sick.”
Streets said she thinks there is little public trust in the selectboard, pointing to how some 200 more people voted to hire a town manager — a position that has less selectboard oversight than a town administrator — than voted for the budget.
Two of the selectboard’s five members have resigned in the wake of failed budget votes. Longtime board member Bob Beeman, at the time its chair, resigned days after the first vote, saying the town’s political climate had become “extremely negative and volatile” over the past year. And Travis Sabataso — a vocal critic of the initial budget proposal who was elected on Town Meeting Day — resigned in June following the second vote, telling the News & Citizen newspaper that he felt his opinions were being ignored.
Voters elected a new board member Tuesday, Richard Craig, to fill Sabataso’s seat. They also voted in favor of Chris Palermo, who was appointed to fill Beeman’s seat, serving out the remainder of what would have otherwise been Beeman’s term.
Last month, Morristown’s human resources director, Paula Beattie, also resigned. In comments to the News & Citizen, she chalked up her decision to the stress of enduring “constant criticism” from critics of the proposed budgets.
Morristown also has not had a permanent town administrator since Eric Dodge resigned from the job in June. Dodge did not give a reason for his departure at the time, though McDowell said this week that he thinks the town’s volatile politics played a role.
Since then, Morristown Police Chief Jason Luneau has served as interim town administrator. According to Streets, the board is required by state law to start the search for a town manager immediately and expects to make a search plan at its next meeting.
Both Streets and McDowell also noted that it took so long to approve a 2024 budget that the board is now close to starting its work on the budget for the 2025 fiscal year.
“It’s going to be good to let the dust settle,” McDowell said. “But also, we don’t really have much time to let the dust settle.”
