CHESHIRE, Mass. — Voters on Monday rejected a Proposition 2 1/2 override and passed a motion that would level fund the town's fiscal 2025 school assessment.

 

They also voted down a debt exclusion to purchase a $67,000 police cruiser 228-267, but approved an exclusion for an $850,000 fire truck 296-200. An article to separate the positions of town tax collector and treasurer failed 230-261.

 

All four questions had passed at the annual town meeting.

 

Question 1 on the warrant would have added $150,534 to the town's levy limit to cover the town's $3 million portion of the $23 million Hoosac Valley Regional School budget.

 

The question failed 141-355. At the special town meeting following the vote, Selectmen Chair Shawn McGrath motioned to level fund the assessment at $2,948,462, the same assessment as last year, and that passed 47-20 on a secret ballot.

 

The failure of the school budget means the School Committee has the choice to make cuts or resubmit its budget to a districtwide vote. The budget passed in Adams, the other town in the two-town school district.

 

Hoosac Valley's Business Manager Erika Snyder said the school district will request a meeting of all voters in the school district, which would decide the budget by majority vote.

 

"We've chosen to move forward with the same budget regardless of tonight's outcome," she said. "That's our plan. ... We were prepared for a failed vote tonight."

 

Snyder said the reduction in Cheshire's assessment would translate to $600,000 in cuts because Adams' assessment would also have to be reduced. Cheshire has 224 students enrolled, or about a quarter of the student population. For every $1 Cheshire is reduced, Adams would have to be cut by $3.

 

A number of voters questioned what would happen now that the override had failed and what would happen if they declined to pass the lower assessment. 

 

"If it fails right now we'll fund it through reserves," said John Tremblay of the Finance Committee. He said the committee had last week recommended the override 3-1, so as not to dip into reserves. Prior to the annual town meeting, it was 5-0.

 

"I know this is an emotional issue," he said. "When I think about prior superintendents in the years that I've been doing this, I can remember one who presented an increase almost every year, but never a detailed plan. And I remember another one that came only to shut the school down. I think all of us remember that. And then another one that was only here for 10 months, or less than a year. Now we've got a local product [Superintendent Aaron Dean] that is passionate about the school, has presented a detailed plan. Much of the increase, in fact, most of it is due to things out of the district's control." 

 

Fellow committee member Kathleen Levesque said she was the no vote last week. 

 

"Every year, the School Committee asks and asks and asks, and we give, and we give and we give," she said. "And every year that we made a little inclination to say, no, we're not going to go for the budget, they would come back and go, we have to cut this teacher. We have to cut this para, or these paras, or these teachers.

 

"I don't believe that. I feel it can be done in other ways."

 

If the districtwide vote goes against Cheshire, it will have to find a way to come up with the $150,000. Its levy limit has now been reduced because of the failure of the debt exclusion for the police cruiser, which was to be paid for this year.

 

"Our levy had anticipated having the debt exclusion for just a cruiser ... so, because that failed, now we have to pull that out, which reduces the levy limit," said McGrath. "So now our expenses, which met the levy limit, we've got to fund that."

 

Selectwoman Michelle Francesconi noted that the Board of Selectmen had recommended the override at the annual town meeting to avoid dipping into reserves. 

 

She pointed out the roof on the old wing of the former school, now the Community House, has failed and there are mushrooms growing out of the floor. An earmark of $500,000 put in by state Sen. Paul Mark won't cover all the repairs needed.  

 

"That's just one example of a capital expense that by using our reserves, it ties the hands of the town, so we can't use your money effectively," she said. "We typically only put away $20,000 a year in our stabilization account. And so all of a sudden today, now we've already told you that $67,000, we'd have to use that. That's 3 1/2 years almost of stabilization deposits.

 

"We can't achieve the goals that we have for our infrastructure if we spend our reserves on another school district budget."

 

McGrath said the fire station also needs to be replaced and that the town had just approved "a million-dollar vehicle that's going to sit in a building that's not protecting it properly and not set up properly."

 

Voters were given a card with "yes" and "no" on it and instructed to tear it in half and put their vote in the box and the other piece in the trash. It took only a few moments to vote and count the ballots and Moderator Carol Francesconi read out the results. 

 

The school district will revert to a 1/12 budget based on last year's spending plan until a district vote can be held.

 

The town last rejected a school budget in 2017, in part over the closure of Cheshire Elementary School, but voted to fund the budget with no reductions in July that year. 

 

"I think it's unfortunate that we're in the position that we're in, but we've undertaxed, I think, the town, for a long time," said Michelle Francesconi. "And if we don't, at some point in time, have a 2 1/2 override and start to really flush out what we need to accomplish in town, we're going to be in this position every year."