Aquinnah Voters Adopt Balanced Budget

By IAN FEIN

It took a month and a good dose of grief, but Aquinnah voters last
week completed their annual town meeting and adopted a balanced $2.6
million town budget.

The approval did not come a moment too soon for town officials, who
needed to have a budget in place for the start of the 2007 fiscal year
only three weeks away.

Discussion on Thursday was relatively mild compared with the first
town meeting installment, which ended early last month after budgetary
discord erupted in chaos. Though voters last week approved all but one
of the spending requests, and passed many of them unanimously, a number
of the budgetary line items were scrutinized by town residents.

Selectman and board chairman Michael Hebert at the outset on
Thursday pleaded with the 40-odd voters present to maintain civility and
order.

"I would appreciate if the proper respect and decorum could
take place," Mr. Hebert said. "Please wait to be recognized
by the moderator before making statements."

Skye Lane resident Barbara Bassett, who nearly toppled an incumbent
selectman in a last-minute write-in campaign during the annual town
election last month, continued her criticism of town budgetary practices
on Thursday. She again called the selectmen's budget strategy
manipulative, and berated them for separating out some popular and
statutory line items as Proposition 2 1/2 overrides.

"If the Martha's Vineyard Commission payment was
mandatory, then why was it put on as an override?" Ms. Bassett
asked last week, after the commission assessment, which failed as an
override at the polls, was placed back in the overall town budget.
"Why would something that we were legally required to pay be put
up for a vote?"

Despite weathering some criticism, selectmen in the end actually
succeeded in their tactics. Aquinnah voters, who were traditionally
weary of overriding Proposition 2 1/2, the state law that restricts
annual increases in the town property tax levy limit, last month gave
town officials some budgetary breathing room by approving more than
$120,000 in overrides.

Selectmen then slipped back into the budget some of the important
overrides that failed - including the $27,000 statutory assessment
to the Martha's Vineyard Commission - and made a few cuts to
balance out the bottom line. The town housing committee offered to lower
its own expense line by $6,000 to fund the town's share of the
Dukes County Regional Housing Authority, which also failed an override
request at the polls.

Lighthouse Road resident Deborah Webb, the lone person to vote
against the budget last week, told selectmen that their override
strategy may have caused unintended cuts for certain programs and
departments.

"When people went and voted on the overrides, they may have
had many different reasons for voting whatever way," Ms. Webb
said. "I think the regional housing authority and the town
committee both need to be funded. But I voted no on everything [at the
polls] because I was hoping you would go back and work on the
budget."

Voters eventually approved the budget without any amendments from
the floor, but Ms. Bassett and Russell Smith both questioned salary line
items for the tax collector/treasurer, fire department and police
department.

Finance committee members also expressed some concern about the
police department wages, which went up more than 10 per cent this year
to reflect previously negotiated increases. Unbeknownst to the finance
committee, the latest police department contract signed by selectmen
called for a seven per cent annual wage increase, on top of a cost of
living adjustment of roughly four per cent.

"When this contract is up, it is quite unlikely we would
support a seven per cent increase," said finance committee member
John Walsh, who added that he only learned about the significant
increase at last month's town meeting. "This [discussion] is
essentially a message from voters, and I think it's been
heard."

Aquinnah police chief Randhi Belain explained that the increases
were negotiated to bring the town's wages in line with police
officer salaries elsewhere on Island. But Mr. Smith told town officials
that - Aquinnah being the smallest town on the Vineyard -
they should not rely on comparing themselves to other towns.

"It's a lot harder to patrol Circuit avenue [in Oak
Bluffs] at 12 o'clock at night rather than the beach here [in
Aquinnah]," Mr. Smith said.

The only spending request voters rejected last week was $25,000 for
a new police cruiser sedan. Residents questioned why the police
department put so many miles on its current fleet of cars, and the
finance committee, which earlier asked Chief Belain to pursue a hybrid
sedan, did not recommend the request.

A simple majority of voters (21-15) supported the purchase, but it
did not receive the two-thirds approval required for stabilization fund
transfers.

Voters did approve $5,000 stabilization fund transfers for
assessors' expenses and a carbon monoxide detector in the fire
station, even though both requests failed at the polls as override
questions last month.

At one point on Thursday Ms. Bassett criticized the line item budget
presented at town meeting, and said she was disappointed that voters do
not see a more thorough breakdown of individual expenses. Her sister,
town accountant Marjorie Spitz, replied that those numbers are now kept
out of the budget to promote clarity, and that many of the expense
breakdowns are available in her office in town hall.

Conservation commission chairman Sarah Thulin said it was incumbent
upon voters to educate themselves about the budget prior to town
meeting.

"I've been in town hall enough to know that there are
endless finance committee meetings and budget preparatory meetings where
they go over everything with a fine tooth comb," Ms. Thulin said.
"As things get more sophisticated with town government, it is up
to us to participate in those meetings and ask questions before we get
here. It is our responsibility to do that."