Northampton’s mayor has been telling residents that he modeled his fiscal stability plan — which calls for regular property tax overrides — on that of Arlington.
This is a town of nearly 43,000 six miles outside Boston. Its website directs you to Wikipedia, which indicates that the median family income is $107,862, the median household income is $85,059 and the poverty rate is only 4 percent, according to the 2010 census.
In contrast, Wikipedia gives Northampton’s population as 28,500(2017 figure) with a median family income of $80,179 and a median household income of $56,999.
Obviously, it’s not as expensive to live in less-affluent Northampton, but as the city’s recent report on housing costs points out, more and more people are being priced out of Paradise City.
Northampton’s poverty rates also tell an interesting story about who lives below the poverty line. About 7.8% of families and 13.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 15.1% of those under age 18 and 7.2% of those age 65 or over.
It looks as if modeling Northampton’s financial strategies on those of Arlington is an overreach. Unless we want the less well-off to vanish, it’s time to find a new model. Perhaps it could be that of a number of nearby “comparable communities” haven’t had overrides because leaders make a point of balancing their budgets.
Helen Wise
Northampton