Franklin Matters: Search results for override

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Monday, June 7, 2010

Letter from Ed Cafasso

Hi everyone,

Over the past few weeks, many of my friends and neighbors have asked good questions about this Tuesday’s override vote. I wanted to share some of those with you in the hopes that it will help you to vote “Yes” when the polls open at the Field House on Tuesday.

But before I do I want to address two items that appeared in the local newspaper recently. In one letter to the editor, a resident said he said was tired of supporting “assistants to assistants” in the schools. There is no such thing. This belief represents baseless ignorance. Franklin spends far below the state average on administration in our schools. In fact, we spend below the state average in every category of school investment.

Another prominent resident claimed that citizens are afraid to express their views about the override for fear that their children would be punished in the schools. This is either an outrageous lie or a convenient rationalization. I have been active in the schools since 1998, and I have been involved in every override since. I have never ever heard of a single such incident. I have never even heard a rumor of such an incident. The resident who made this statement owes our schools either the proof to support the claim or a candid apology.

And now for some of the thoughtful questions that I have heard in my travels…

What is the relationship between the override vote and the planned renovation of Franklin High? There is none. The override would deliver an additional $3 million to the town’s operating budget, including $1.8 million for the schools. The override is designed to close a revenue shortfall. The FHS renovation is a capital project. Later in 2011, voters will be asked to give the town permission to borrow money for the work, like a mortgage. The state will reimburse approximately half the cost for the FHS project, and the cost of the borrowing will not show up on tax bills for three or four years.

Where’s the proof that the schools need these funds? Things seem fine? The Franklin schools are indeed high performing and tremendously efficient. That’s exactly why you should support the override as an investment. The lack of financial support for the schools is like termites living undetected in a house. The truth is that we have eliminated 100 teachers and seven administrators in the past five years. Class sizes have gone up. Kids with learning challenges are getting less personal attention. Teachers are getting less professional development. New fees have been created and existing fees have gone up. Our hardworking school employees are doing their best to hold back the tide, but the odds are against them over time unless we help now.

I am senior citizen on a fixed income. I can’t afford this, and why should I support the schools? My kids are grown and gone. The number one investment for any citizen of Franklin, young or old, is their home. And the best way to protect and strengthen the value of your home is to protect the quality of services in your community – police, fire, schools, public works, etc. If you are a senior, think about how the community helped pay for the public education your children received. Think about what will happen to the value of your home if the quality of services here continues to suffer from lack of investment.

Is there any guarantee that the Town Council will deliver $1.8 million from the override amount to the schools? Yes, their word. The council is publicly committed to that amount for the next two years. As you know, many councilors are actively campaigning for the override. There is no legal way to guarantee what happens when a new council takes office in two years, but history shows that the schools have received tremendous support from the Council. With the exception of one year when state aid was delivered late, well into the fiscal year, the schools have always received all of the state funds designated for education, as well as substantial revenues from property taxes..

Why should I add to my property taxes? Doesn’t it just make more sense to pay more in fees? Your property taxes are tax deductible. Fees are not. On a pre-tax basis, the proposed override will cost the average taxpayer $254 per year, about 70 cents per day, based on the average property assessment of $368,000 in Franklin. Passage of the ballot question would add 69 cents to the tax rate, or $.69 per $1,000 of the assessed value of your home. If the override fails, some athletic fees will increase more than the average annual tax cost of the override!

Where can I get more information about the override?

An excellent brochure has been developed that attempts to answer common questions and provides a chart of what services will be affected by the outcome of the override vote. You can view and download the brochure at: http://franklinschoolcommittee.wordpress.com/override-brochure/

Up-to-date information and links on financial and academic issues, particularly from a school perspective, are available at: http://franklinschoolcommittee.wordpress.com/override-page/

Concerned citizens who support passage of the override have formed a group called “Invest in Franklin.” You can visit the Invest in Franklin web site for additional information at: http://investinfranklin.weebly.com.

You can visit and join the Invest in Franklin group page on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2265200218&ref=ts

A Facebook event page has been created as a reminder about the June 8 vote. You can view it here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=118040221563289

My personal view is that Tuesday offers you a modest opportunity to invest in your community. No one agrees with every decision the town makes, but I am convinced, based on my years of involvement in town government and the schools, that Franklin is exceptionally well run, well intentioned and very efficient. Franklin lives within its means, provides a great quality of life, and does what it needs to maintain public property.

The outcome of this override has implications for all the essential services on which you and your family rely. In my mind, a “Yes” vote represents a well-deserved, very modest investment in the schools, police, fire, public works and library services that support my family, my friends and neighbors, and my property value.

Your town and schools need your help. I hope you will join me in supporting the override. Every vote is needed. Passage is by no means certain. Please do your civic duty on Tuesday and encourage all of your fellow citizens to do the same.

This e-mail reflects my opinion alone and is provided as a constituent service. Be on the look-out for an update soon on the great progress being made around the FHS renovation project.

As always, I welcome your thoughts and suggestions. If you are receiving duplicate e-mails or if you no longer wish to receive these e-mails, please let me know and I will remove you from the distribution list. If you know of someone you would like to add to the list, please send along their e-mail address.

Thank you!

Ed Cafasso, Member
Franklin School Committee
edcafasso@comcast.net

Franklin, MA

Budget - Override Collection - FY 2011

The following links provide access to information on the budget for Fiscal Year 2011

Additional items will be added here as they are found/prepared.

If you are looking for something in particular regarding the budget and don't find it, please let me know.

Letter from Scott Mason, Town Council Chairman

Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Jay & I cover Franklin's Current Issues in this Q&A 3 part series (audio)

FM #1215-1216-1217 = This is the Franklin Matters radio show, number 1215-1216-1217 in the series.

This session of the radio show shares my conversation with Jay Horrigan, Franklin resident, Franklin TV & Radio talent and fellow Board of Directors member for the Franklin Community Cable Access organization. We met to record this conversation in the studio on Thursday, May 16, 2024.

We spent enough time in the studio discussing current events that our wives were sending out queries as to where we were. The conversation is split into 3 sections to better enable sharing via the radio time slot (less than an hour).

We talk about

Jay’s story and what he keeps busy with
Spend time to answer current issue questions

June 11 override vote
How the $6.8M was determined
What is an override vs a debt exclusion
Development of the ‘fiscal cliff’ post COVID
State vs Commonwealth (no real difference in operation)
Fund allocation from the override in FY 2025 and following
Coordination of Town and School
Explanation of the bigger ‘pie’, budget, etc.
Franklin TV video archives of Town, School, and other committee meetings
Condense the Town Council and School Committee meetings via audio as Town Council Quarterbacking and Chalkboard Chat answering the 2 questions: What just happened? What does that mean for us as residents and taxpayers?
Does the override tie to the redistricting plan?
School ‘master plan’ va Town Master Plan
Modular units helped to accommodate the school ‘population bubble’
Mr G’s analogy on how the redistricting was done, stepping back to better align students with the better school facilities
How the “Portrait of the Graduate” plays into this
Teachers are being reduced gradually to account for the decline in school enrollment

Part 1 of this conversation runs about 53 minutes. Let’s listen to my conversation with Jay. Audio link -> https://franklin-ma-matters.captivate.fm/episode/fm-1215-franklin-current-issues-qa-with-jay-horrigan-05-16-24

Part 2 of this conversation runs about 30 minutes. Let’s listen to my conversation with Jay.

In this second episode we answer more questions

How does the override provide funds for school teachers’ pay?
Teacher union president Donna Grady interview provides insights to teacher issues
Teacher retention issue, is it related to the ‘massive new schools’?
Better expectation for future funding of the Schools post override
Difference in level of planning for redistricting, the ‘plan’ vs the implementation plan to work out the details
Civic engagement, the parents concerned about the redistricting can be involved in the implementation plan
What is the goal of the Town “master plan”? What do we want Franklin to be when we grow up?
The issue with the middle school after school activities and late bus, how is that related to the override?
School funding of buses vs parent cost, a change from $360 to $500 if the override fails, along with other activities and sports fees will increase if the override fails
Sense of community and ‘commonwealth’ vs the divisive and personal focal points we hear
Timing of the override June vs. November, better for the students educational experience
Demise of newspapers, rise of newsletters, flyers sent home replaced by email and PDFs on the schools pages

Audio link -> https://franklin-ma-matters.captivate.fm/episode/fm-1216-franklin-current-issues-qa-p2-of-3-05-16-24

Part 3 of this conversation runs about 38 minutes. Let’s listen to my conversation with Jay.

The possibility of an underride and what it would do
Concern of getting the message out amidst the Presidential campaign ads
School planning needed for redistricting, 2 summers needed
Disruption for school year in November if the underride succeeds
Assuming override passes, when would taxpayers see the increase?
How does the new apartment revenues flow to the Town (about 10 minutes in P3)
Tax increment financing (TIF) (Tegra Medical - 2009, Hamilton Technology - 2011, Cold Chain - 2015, Plansee - 2022)
What’s happening with Davis Thayer
Redistricting tied to override?
Redistricting tied to new police station?

Audio link -> https://franklin-ma-matters.captivate.fm/episode/fm-1217-franklin-current-issues-qa-part-3-of-3-05-16-24

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Contact info for Jay -> jayhorrigan@gmail.com

Town override summary page -> https://www.franklinma.gov/town-budget/webforms/fy25-override-information

State vs Commonwealth info -> https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/whats-the-difference-between-a-commonwealth-and-a-state

Donna Grady interview -> https://www.franklinmatters.org/2024/05/talking-about-teaching-education-with.html

Police Station Building Committee May 13, 2024 -> https://www.franklinmatters.org/2024/01/police-station-building-cmte-agrees-on.html

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We are now producing this in collaboration with Franklin.TV and Franklin Public Radio (wfpr.fm) or 102.9 on the Franklin area radio dial.

This podcast is my public service effort for Franklin but we can't do it alone. We can always use your help.

How can you help?

If you can use the information that you find here, please tell your friends and neighbors
If you don't like something here, please let me know

Through this feedback loop we can continue to make improvements. I thank you for listening.

For additional information, please visit www.franklin.news/ or www.Franklinmatters.org/

If you have questions or comments you can reach me directly at shersteve @ gmail dot com

The music for the intro and exit was provided by Michael Clark and the group "East of Shirley". The piece is titled "Ernesto, manana" c. Michael Clark & Tintype Tunes, 2008 and used with their permission.

I hope you enjoy!

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Jay & I cover Franklin's Current Issues in this Q&A 3 part series (audio)

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

On this day: May 22, 2007 Franklin voted for the first operational override

On this day, twelve years ago, 8759 Franklin residents went to the old high school field house to cast their votes for an operational override. The vote was successful and historic.

While Franklin has successful passed debt exclusions for several school buildings (including most recently for the new high school in 2012), this was the only operational override passed.

"The votes came in to pass the first operational budget override in Franklin's Prop 2 1/2 history.
The final tally was 5,028 for and 3,722 against with 9 blanks and 8,759 total votes cast."

https://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2007/05/vote-tally-override-52207.html

The override collection for the 2007 vote can be found here
https://steves2cents.blogspot.com/2007/04/franklin-override-collection.html

Yes, this was the beginning of Franklin Matters. The domain and new website came online in November 2007. Links to the prior posts on my personal blog are still valid in the archive where needed.

Franklin failed to pass operational overrides in 2008 and 2010 and has not had a vote scheduled since that time. However, next year maybe an opportunity.

Franklin override collection for 2010 (FY 2011)
https://www.franklinmatters.org/2010/05/budget-override-collection-fy-2011.html

Franklin override info for 2008 (FY 2009) (not a single collection; I learned as I went along to do so) https://www.franklinmatters.org/search?q=override%2C+2008

On this day: May 22, 2007 Franklin votes for first operational override

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Override & debt exclusion info in the archives

Now that the "O" word (override) has been mentioned, there is a bunch of information in these archives that may be useful to provide the historical perspective.

Long time readers may recall that Franklin Matters came to be during the 2007 override and the domain officially was born in Nov 2007.

The 2007 Override is noteworthy as it is the only successful override Franklin has passed in its history to date. It passed because there was unified support across the Town Council and School Committee. The succeeding overrides (2008 & 2010) failed because that unity did not exist. Some naysayers among the Council and School Committee created enough doubt and discord that success was unattainable.

There also was a special ballot question on the State election of 2014 to provide $1.5 million to fund road maintenance that failed significantly. As it was a Sate election, Franklin turned out at 59% (normal for State elections) and 8289 voters said No, 3583 said Yes. https://www.franklinmatters.org/2014/10/ballot-question-5-dedicated-override-to.html

Coming out of the 2008 override failure there was recognition that a long term financial plan needed to be developed. A committee was created and began work on that in early 2010. The Financial Planning Committee changed to the Long Range Planning Committee. The first report they produced is now what we see each year when the Town Administrator publishes their 5 year outlook.

The Joint Budget Committee is the current working group to help with these long range and financial planning matters. They have not met frequently enough so we find ourselves now in a position where some folks understand the situation and many do not. The Joint Budget should meet more frequently (at least quarterly, in my view) rather than the annual meeting they have had in recent years.

The archive has links to collect the information pasted for each of the elections.

There is also a spreadsheet with the specific ballot question history for both the debt exclusions (i.e. schools) and override votes.

Franklin Override - Debt Exclusion Vote History

Some of the links break as the Town and School pages were updated twice since then (and neither upgrade maintained link integrity).

If you find a link that might be valuable for your research, let me know, I might have the individual document in my own archives and can find and update the link accordingly.

Additional archive links can be found in the Key Link tab https://www.franklinmatters.org/p/important-links.html

Lincoln St road work during Aug 2014

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Voices of Franklin: Dear Franklin Town Council & School Committee, "Please, vote to put the override on the ballot in June"

Dear Franklin Town Council & School Committee, Mr. Helen and Superintendent Giguere,

I am writing to you this evening to urge you all to vote to put the override on the ballot this June. Anyone who claims this has been a rushed process has simply not been paying attention. I take particular umbrage at the residents who have lived here far longer than I have who are claiming this override process has been rushed. As someone who only moved here in late 2021, and, again, has a toddler and an infant at home, I should be the resident who has no idea of the financial straits Franklin is in. And yet I am aware. The idea that this override process has been rushed is simply absurd. A simple Google search will pull up the former Superintendent of Schools comments from 2008 - 16 years ago - about the financial crunch facing the Franklin Schools.

Former Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, "taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society." That's the ballgame - taxes are the price we pay to enjoy all the benefits of civilization. At the local level, that means our water and sewer systems work, our roads are paved, we have police and fire departments, we have good schools, and all of those services must be funded adequately.

I believe reasonable people can disagree. I also believe that reasonable people, when looking at the financial data provided, will happily shell out more money in property taxes in order to continue to fund our local government properly, because the alternative is horrifying.

Let me be clear - I want to live in a town where our local services are properly funded. If that means I pay more in property taxes to do so, then I will do so happily. I want the Franklin Police Department to be fully funded (and I want them to get the new police station they need when the time comes for that). I want the Fire Department to be fully funded. I want the DPW to be fully funded. I want the Library to be fully funded. I want the Facilities Department to be fully funded, and yes, I want to make damn sure the schools are fully funded as well. And I know that nothing in life comes free, so I (and many more people in town) are willing to pay that cost, to ensure that our local services remain the best they can be.

I know Franklin does have people on fixed incomes, and this will be difficult for them. This includes my own aunt and uncle living here as well. I have all the sympathy in the world for people on fixed incomes during these times of crazy inflation. I can only hope that they understand this override is absolutely necessary and their sense of civic duty and pride in the town of Franklin motivates them to vote in favor of it, despite the additional hardship such an override will represent.

However, I believe a lot of the opposition to the override comes from people who are currently in the workforce, people who have seen the property values of their homes skyrocket in recent years, and simply buy into the narrative that government is the problem and that taxes are a form of theft. Please, ignore those people, as they do not represent the majority of voters here in Franklin. Please, vote to put the override on the ballot in June. Thank you all for your service - I know that you all get a lot of flak in your positions as government leaders. Keep your heads up, ignore the negativity, and please do the right thing and put the override to the ballot in June. I look forward to seeing the joint Town Council/School Committee meeting this Wednesday at FHS.

Respectfully,

Ben Liberto

23 Southgate Rd.

Voices of Franklin: Dear Franklin Town Council & School Committee, "Please, vote to put the override on the ballot in June"

If you have something to say, you can find the guidelines here
https://www.franklinmatters.org/2011/03/introducing-voices-of-franklin.html

Franklin Matters

Monday, June 7, 2010

Letter from Ed Cafasso

Budget - Override Collection - FY 2011

Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Jay & I cover Franklin's Current Issues in this Q&A 3 part series (audio)

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

On this day: May 22, 2007 Franklin voted for the first operational override

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Override & debt exclusion info in the archives

Tuesday, April 23, 2024

Voices of Franklin: Dear Franklin Town Council & School Committee, "Please, vote to put the override on the ballot in June"

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