Vote NO on Question #4 (Charlton), just in case it matters

“4. Shall the Town of Charlton be allowed to exempt from the provisions of proposition two and one-half, so-called, the amounts required to pay for the bond issued in order to design, construct, and equip a new highway operations facility?”

As a little background for those unfamiliar with Prop. 2½, it was a measure passed by ballot initiative in 1980. Each municipality in Massachusetts has a “levy limit”, which is the maximum that they can levy in property taxes each year. This limit gets increased each year by 2½% plus an adjustment for any new growth in the town. However, a town can pass a ballot question to increase their levy limit permanently (a “Prop 2½ Override”) or temporarily to pay for something (a “Prop 2½ Debt Exclusion” or “Prop 2½ Capital Outlay Exclusion”). (Although often colloquially the temporary form will be called an “override” as well.)

In order to borrow the money to pay for a new highway barn ($3,500,000), it needed to pass with a 2/3 majority at the Special Town Meeting on October 28. It was defeated, 78 in favor to 52 against. If that had passed, this debt exclusion ballot question would have allowed for the property taxes to be increased for the 20 year life of the bond to pay for it.

I had actually voted for the borrowing at town meeting, somewhat to my surprise. It seemed like a wise investment to protect the millions of dollars in highway equipment we have, and would have increased public safety and the lifetime of these very expensive vehicles. Also, the price wasn’t likely to get cheaper in the future. (Contractors are cheaper now than they used to be, but that won’t last.) But, the price was too high for some people (which I can understand).

So now, this ballot question is rather pointless. In fact, since it needed to be sent to the state to be put on the ballot before there was a dollar amount for the project, passing it now could be a blank check to have a debt exclusion for any highway operations facility of any cost in the future.

So, I’m voting against it just to be sure we don’t end up in an odd situation like that. It’s not clear that this question would have passed even if the vote at the town meeting had passed, but now I’m pretty sure that this question won’t pass, and I’m going to be a part of helping make that the case. (It wouldn’t surprise me if the newspapers didn’t report on the result of the question at all on Wednesday morning.)