By Adam Swift
This week, the school committee and the town council both voted to move forward with a tiered-approach to a school budget Proposition 2-½ override in the first quarter of next year.
Tuesday night, the council approved the request made by the school committee the previous evening to place the override on the ballot.
With the tiered approach, there will be two parts to the override question. Voters will be asked to approve a $3.5 million override, and a $4.95 million override.
Voters will be able to vote for both amounts, one of the amounts, or neither. If both figures gain more yes than no votes, the higher option ($4.95 million) will be the override amount.
The school committee also requested that the override be placed on a standalone ballot and that the election take place on Feb. 25.
However, with a pending debt exclusion for a new fire station also in the works, the town council did not set a date for the school budget override at its meeting Tuesday night. Council President Jim Letterie said there will be more discussion about the timing of the elections in January, but said the school vote will take place in the first quarter of 2025.
In November, voters rejected a $4.95 million school override. Since that time, the school committee and administration have been working to bring the issue back before the voters.
The school committee’s finance subcommittee did recommend moving forward once again with a $4. million override. But Letterie and school committee member Gus Martucci, while noting that the money was needed to fund the school department, said they were hesitant about going forward with that number when it was recently rejected by voters.
The $3.5 million figure would cover expected shortfalls for the FY26 budget while putting a small amount of money into an educational stabilization fund. The $4.9 million would include a larger amount in the stabilization fund, helping the district meet its budgetary needs for several years beyond FY26.
“They are requesting a pyramid (or tiered) type of question in regards to an override,” said Letterie at Tuesday night’s council meeting. “So there would be two questions, questions 1A and 1B are separate questions. You may vote for or against each question individually, each question requires a majority of those voting on each question to pass; if more than one question passes, the question with the higher dollar amount would prevail.”
Question 1A reads, “Shall the Town of Winthrop be allowed to assess an additional $4.95 million in real estate taxed and personal property taxes for the funding of the fiscal year 26 Winthrop Public Schools operating budget” with $1.45 million of that money for the funding of the stabilization fund to support the district’s future operational budgets.
Question 1B asks if the town shall be allowed to assess an additional $3.5 million in real estate and personal property taxes for the funding of the FY26 operating budget.
“We are adopting a pyramid type of approach for those questions, which allows flexibility in how voters respond and acknowledges those who voted for the $4.95 million in the November election and also acknowledge those who voted no by offering an option to vote for a lesser amount, $3.5 million in this case,” stated Letterie, reading from the communication from the school committee.
The school committee also noted that while the vote on placing the question on a standalone ballot might not take place at the Tuesday council meeting, that it was important to address the issue as soon as possible.
Out of respect to the school committee, Letterie asked that the council vote on the school committee override request without amending the amounts asked for in the override.
“The school committee and the superintendent did an incredible job, they are well-versed in this, the superintendent understands the numbers, and out of respect to the school committee, I said I would not entertain a motion to amend any of these numbers,” said Letterie.
Councilor-at-Large Rob DeMarco said he absolutely believes that the schools need the $4.95 million that was requested in November and is included on the 2025 override request.
“I also hear you in that the public and my constituents voted against the $4.9 million in the last election,” DeMarco said. “I actually appreciate what the school committee did in saying … we still want the $4.9 million, it’s not that the $3.5 million is going to be okay, we are going to be back doing this again at some point. The $3.5 million is giving you another option, it’s a bandaid, instead of being a long-term solution, the 3.5 is a bandaid.”
Council Vice President Hannah Belcher said she agreed that the $4.95 million is the figure the town should be striving to hit.
“I’m slightly concerned about doing the pyramid approach in that people will say, ‘You asked for $4.95 million, now you can do it for $3.5 million, why did you ask for that much?’” Belcher said. “‘And if you vote no, are you going to say we can do it for two?’ So I think it sets a slippery precedent for things like this.
“That being said, I’m not an expert on these things, the school committee is far more versed than I am, and out of respect for them, I would accept their recommendation,” Belcher continued. “But I do think that is something we should seriously consider and if we move forward with this as part of the public outreach campaign, we need to really explain what the difference between those two numbers is; what it looks like, when we will be coming back, what it means as far as the availability of programming in the schools and knowing whatever the cuts might be.”
Letterie said there is zero doubt in his mind that the schools need more funding.
“I also have to be cognizant of the fact that the town voted 39 days ago, and 60 percent of the 9,200 who voted, voted against it,” said Letterie. “It could be a multitude of reasons for it, it could be a lengthy ballot, it could be just be misery with stuff going on in the world, it could be they just didn’t understand the question, it could be they got it confused with other questions, or it could be that they just thought as much as it was needed, it was just too much of an ask. So I have to value and respect that decision, and I applaud the school committee for giving an option.”
Letterie said the difference between the two budget figures isn’t really reflected in the FY26 budget, but that the higher amount would help fund a stabilization fund that would help close future budget shortfalls. He added that there will need to be future discussions about what the town values in education, but that the current override is needed just to keep things at the level they are now.
“This is a time to maintain what we have,” Letterie said. “I do get wary about two dollar amounts, I think it can be confusing. But I do really value the fact that they are giving a more affordable dollar amount.
“I think people in this town have shown over the last 20-plus years that they do value education,” Letterie continued. “They built three new schools, they’ve built the new athletic facility, so they value education. They don’t come to this ask lightly, and the fact that it has been 15 years is great, but the fact is it would have been 11 or 12 if it wasn’t for Covid.”
Prior to the council vote on Tuesday night, Superintendent of Schools Lisa Howard outlined the reasoning and need for the override.
“I got some questions and concerns about the pyramid style override questions,” said Howard. “So because I am a boss and I get to make executive decisions, I will now be changing it to a tiered override system.”
Howard said the administration, school committee, and the citizens’ committee did an analysis of the November override vote.
“Some of the things that we figured out and that we knew was that 3,500 people voted yes on the $4.95 million override, which is amazing,” said Howard. “We also identified, as did everybody else, that the election timing was sort of a perfect storm.”
Howard noted that the state ballot questions had detailed explanations of what a yes and no vote would mean, and that the town did not have the same opportunity with its ballot question.
Howard said if the schools are going to recognize all the people who came out and voted yes, they also have to acknowledge the people who voted no and give them an option.
The other thing Howard said that was researched with a tiered vote was the fact that you can put an explanation on the ballot.
“You can craft a question that is easy to read and to understand,” she said. “You can also put what will happen if you vote yes, this is the result, and if you vote no, this is the result.”
The superintendent said she believes the tiered ballot is the best opportunity for the community.
Howard added that voting for the override doesn’t just benefit the schools.
“If you think of it, we are bringing people to the polls to focus in on one thing, to make a decision on one item, to really be able to have a thoughtful process,” said Howard. “Should that pass, the statement that we made earlier about the town if it doesn’t pass, having to go to other departments and diminish the budgets of other departments is removed from the equation if the school district gets an override. Nobody would be happier about that than me.”