AMHERST — Annual Town Meeting kicked off its first night of business Monday by unanimously adopting a revised assessment formula for the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools, a temporary move while communities study a more permanent solution.
With little controversy and no close decisions on an evening in which members for the first time could use electronic keypads to cast votes, members also began working through an $86.6 million budget, with discussion but little debate about several spending areas.
The new school assessment formula, which School Finance Director Sean Mangano calls the “taxable property method,” factors in property values in each community and was developed after officials in Shutesbury asked that the ability for a community to pay its assessment be included.
This one-year temporary initiative for the $30.8 million regional budget, Mangano said, replaces a system in which the assessments to Amherst, Leverett, Pelham and Shutesbury were based only on a five-year rolling average of each town’s student enrollment.
The towns are forming a working group that will begin meeting this month to find a long-term solution.
But Select Board member Andrew Steinberg said it will be a challenge to come up with an arrangement acceptable to each town in future years.
“This is going to be a complicated process going forward because the issues are very complex,” Steinberg said.
The amended formula won’t change the $15.2 million assessment for Amherst, which it also would have paid under the previous formula, Mangano said.
Finance Committee Chairwoman Kay Moran said the proposed $86.6 million spending plan provides essentially the same services for residents without tapping any of the $9.9 million reserves.
Among the items in this budget, Moran said, are preserving the community liaison police officer who works with a neighborhood liaison from the University of Massachusetts to reduce the impact of student behavior on residences near the campus; maintaining two elementary school library aides; and continuing stipends for low-income families to participate in Leisure Services and Supplemental Education programs.
Town Meeting approved a $6.96 million general government budget that increases the stipends for the Select Board from $300 to $2,000 for the chairperson and $1,500 for one member, with the other three members to be raised in subsequent years. These stipends were first put in place in 1973, said Select Board member Constance Kruger, and changes were initiated by the board last year.
“It is extremely awkward for us, but we feel like it’s a correction,” Kruger said.
“The Finance Committee considers this to be a reasonable set of stipends for the Select Board,” said committee member Bernard Kubiak.
Town Meeting also approved a $10.1 million public safety budget, including police, fire and ambulance service; $2.35 million for previously approved debt; $1.27 million for the conservation, development and inspections departments; and $1.86 million for community services, which covers LSSE, Cherry Hill Golf Course and swimming pools.
Though not used on the first night, town moderator James Pistrang spent about 20 minutes introducing members to the new electronic keypads that will be used for tally votes.
Last fall, Town Meeting adopted new voting procedures for Town Meeting and appropriated $26,000 to purchase 260 electronic keypads.
During member check-in, each Town Meeting member received the keypads, known as the OptionFinder G4 devices, which replace the red and green paper cards that were previously used for tally votes.
Pistrang explained that all votes will still begin as voice votes, and if an electronic vote is requested, members will be able to vote yes, no or abstain, all within a specific time limit.
Before each session, a test vote will be completed to make sure the devices are working correctly.
Each keypad has a number associated with a member of Town Meeting. If a device is not returned at the end of the night, the town clerk’s office will call the next day to alert a member that the device has to be brought back, with Pistrang observing some towns with similar devices will send police officers to people’s homes.
“I have not discussed this with the (police) chief yet, so we’re not doing that,” Pistrang said.
At the next session at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Town Meeting will take up a petition from Amherst College students asking the college to divest from fossil fuel investments, as well as additional spending articles, including budgets for the schools and Jones Library.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
