BEVERLY — Residents vote on a Proposition 21/2 override a week from today, and those both for and against raising property taxes to preserve Beverly public schools are hitting the streets to make sure people hit the polls.
Elliott Margolis, founder of Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, said more than 100 volunteers are calling residents to remind them to vote on June 3. They are also going door to door handing out brochures that outline reasons to vote against the override. Members have also been out every weekend holding anti-override signs in about six locations around the city.
"We've gotten a ton of people with thumbs-up, a very occasional person with a thumbs-down, and I think we've had an instance where someone was pretty nasty to us," Margolis said. "It's a very emotional issue, and getting even more emotional the closer we get to the election."
Indeed, more than 150 volunteers for Yes! for Beverly, many of them parents, are pushing hard for an override, especially since the city now knows better how the district will be rearranged in September if it doesn't pass.
The School Committee this week approved Mayor Bill Scanlon's plan to close McKeown School and keep Cove School open. Superintendent James Hayes had proposed closing both schools and turning them into a secondary alternative school and early childhood education center, respectively, to help fund a $2.67 million gap between funding and revenue in next year's budget.
Under the mayor's plan, McKeown kids and those in the remaining five elementary schools will be moved around as part of a citywide redistricting, essentially enlarging the "neighborhoods" served by the schools. Hayes has also said the plan could fall anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000 short of closing the budget gap, which could mean laying off a team of teachers at Briscoe Middle School, which were just reinstated, and other program cuts to art, music and gym.
"One school is still going to close," said Joan Sullivan, a leader of the pro-override Yes! for Beverly. "It will require more cuts. It's still going to require laying off a dozen teachers. You're going to have to redistrict citywide, and you still haven't solved the class size issue."
Members of Yes! for Beverly have been talking to people — at ballgames, at the bus stop, and throughout the city — to spread their message. Like their opponents, Yes! for Beverly has been calling voters and going door to door, and they plan to send out mailings this week.
Beverly has never voted on an override since 1981, when the law that cities and towns can't raise property taxes by more than 21/2 percent without an election was enacted. So a large part of the campaign is based around education, Sullivan said.
"It really requires having a conversation, and that's what we've been doing with people in the city," she said.
Passing the $2.5 million override would keep the school system the same in September, with very minor cuts, and give administrators a year to come up with a better plan, she said. Property taxes would also permanently increase by about $184.50 a year for a home assessed at $450,000.
Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility have signs that declare, "An override is forever."
"A lot of people think it's just a one-year thing," Margolis said. But once the tax rate goes up, it's like setting a new bar. Residents will have to pay that money every year.
The mayor has publicly promised that money will be used to fund education every year, Sullivan said.
"It raises $2.5 million, and it closes the budget gap for at least the next two years, " she said.
Yet Margolis said Scanlon is not legally bound to allocate that money to the schools.
"The mayor says a lot of things that aren't always true, and he's not going to be mayor forever," Margolis said.
Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility have presented other ways to close the budget gap without hitting up taxpayers — many of them senior citizens on fixed incomes and struggling financially, he said.
"We're trying to get the city to use our money more wisely," Margolis said. "We want the kids to get educated, we just don't want to look at more taxes."
Suggestions include raising employee contributions to health insurance, eliminating early retirement and payouts for accumulated sick leave for city employees, reducing the number of school administrators, privatizing custodial services and busing, canceling plans to build a new high school and repairing the old one instead, requiring private schools to pay taxes, and petitioning the state to pay for unfunded mandates.
That might not be enough, however, the pro-override forces say.
"We appreciate and welcome that they're talking about solutions," Sullivan said. Yet some of what they suggest has already been addressed and turned down, or is being addressed now, and they're all more long-term solutions, she said.
"All of those things take time to implement," Sullivan said. An override is a temporary fix, and over the next year the city can look at some of those options and develop a way to fund and reconfigure the school district with a plan that's well thought out, and not rushed.
In the meantime, "Passing the override will preserve quality education in our city," Sullivan said.
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