The Franklin City Council voted to break the city’s tax cap Thursday night in a move unprecedented since Franklin residents first voted to adopt the cap almost 30 years ago.
The council voted, 6-3, in favor of breaking the tax cap – overriding the veto of Mayor Tony Giunta – by moving municipal and school debt services, or bond payments and interest due on those payments, outside the tax cap for one year.
The decision will put $708,623 toward the Franklin School District’s budget, almost twice the amount that the school board was asking the city to provide for 2018-19 in its five-year plan.
“This is a monumental moment,” said Steve Bunker, a parent of three children in the Franklin School District. “Our schools have been neglected for too long. This is finally a step in the right direction.”
The Franklin School District had planned for a $813,832 school budget shortfall this year, resulting in the termination of 14 positions throughout the district. But with the addition of $708,623 to the budget, the district should be able to bring most teachers back, school board Chairman Tim Dow said.
The addition will increase Franklin’s estimated local and state taxation revenue from $5,333,000 to $6,042,577, translating to a tax increase of $1.28 per $1,000 of assessed property value, or $256 on a $200,000 home.
The city council and school board agreed that the cap would be lifted only for one year, and that the two bodies would meet before next year to find a long-term solution for the school budget shortfalls, which have been close to $1,000,000 three straight years.
Ward 3 Councilor Paul Trudel said he felt confident that money could be found in the budget so that the tax cap would not have to be broken again.
“I 99.9 percent guarantee we will find the cuts and we will find a way to make this up – not just for next year, but the following years, because we know what we’re going to be facing,” Trudel said. “We can sit down and figure this thing out. It’s not rocket science.”
But Giunta said he worried that by overriding the tax cap, the city council was setting a precedent and choosing the easy way out.
“If we could find $700,000 in the budget – which we just committed to doing for next year – then why didn’t we find it for this year?” Giunta said after the meeting. “I’ve been running these committee meetings between the school board and the city for a year and a half now, and we haven’t found a dime on the school side. It frustrates me that we were sold a bill of goods tonight full well knowing we would not find it next year.”
Teacher cuts have become a regular occurrence in recent years as Franklin has struggled with the loss of state funding. Last year, four staff cuts in Franklin were proposed, and one employee was laid off. In 2016, 25 cuts were proposed, and 13 employees laid off.
The city took a hit when the legislature in 2015 decided to discontinue stabilization grants, a $150 million program that once helped to buoy property-poor cities like Franklin, via annual reductions of 4 percent until the grant funds are removed altogether. In Franklin, stabilization once accounted for about half of the $8 million it received in state aid, but its annual allotment is being reduced by about $160,000 a year.
In addition, Franklin’s adequacy grants – a base of $3,600 received from the state for each student – has decreased as enrollment has dropped, a trend that’s evident around the state.
Members of the Franklin city council and City Manager Judie Milner attended a workshop earlier this month in fellow property-poor town Pittsfield led by Executive Councilor Andru Volinksy, the lead attorney on a series of landmark state Supreme Court cases out of Claremont that established the state’s responsibility to fund an “adequate” education.
Both the Franklin city council and school board have expressed interest in being a part of another lawsuit that would challenge the state eduction funding formula.
Mary Grace Bunker, a Franklin High School sophomore, said the decision to break the cap made her feel hopeful for the first time that attending Franklin High School will help her reach her goal of becoming a pediatric neurologist.
“I am very thankful for the city councilors who voted in favor of my future,” Bunker said. “College is my reality, and the city showed tonight that they want to support me in that reality.”
The city council will meet next on July 18 at 6 p.m. for public hearing in city hall.