SOUTHAMPTON — Both questions on the May 20 town election ballot failed to pass, leading the town back to the drawing board for its new public safety complex plans and looking at cuts to Norris Elementary School staff.
Question one asked voters if the town should override the state property tax limit to fund its new public safety complex. With its failure, the town will now begin reassessing its plans for the new complex, as Town Administrator Scott Szczebak said a new complex is an obvious need for the town.
“I think we cut down a lot from the original $40 million price tag, but we’re probably going to have to go back to the drawing board,” Szczebak told Reminder Publishing. “Obviously the need is there. If you look at our fire station, it can’t continue that way. So, we have to figure out something else.”
Szczebak added that if passed, the town was prepared to secure all $27 million in funding for the proposed project this fall through a special election, but now that is unlikely with the rejection of the override.
The town has retained the services of land use professionals for public input and to locate and design the future site of the public safety building at “0 College Hwy.” The passing of this question would have helped cover engineering and architectural fees as work continued toward the construction of a new public safety building in Southampton.
Szczebak added the Select Board will pick back up discussions on a new public safety complex project at its next meeting.
The other question on this year’s town election ballot asked voters if the town should raise taxes to make up about $897,000 for the purpose of supplementing the funding for the operating budget for the Norris Elementary School. With the question failing, Norris School could see the loss of the equivalent of 10 full-time positions.
“That’s on override and that money would be for the Norris School budget. With the override, that’s a permanent increase,” Szczebak explained about the question earlier this month. “For the override, this year’s budget was a little difficult. We had an 18-plus percent increase in health insurance. The central office budget came in a little over 4% for Hampshire Regional, but the Norris budget was 16-plus percent. That’s a huge budget buster obviously, but the primary drivers were special education, contractual increases and central office costs.”
Szczebak said this will have an impact on the town’s overall budget down the line as they will use different one-time funding expenses from other town accounts to help bridge gaps where they can in this funding. He added next year’s budget season as it relates to Norris will look similar to this year as many districts are facing the same challenges in funding to the schools.
“We are going to be using a lot of one-time funds from the municipal side,” Szczebak said. “Hopefully revenues stay consistent over the next year. If we start to see a dip to revenues, that’s going to impact us.”
All open positions on this year’s town election ballot were uncontested. Unofficial town election results can be found on the town’s website.
