Ballot question raises tempers
By Karen Mann

Town officials are facing a variety of questions in relationship with an apparently badly worded ballot question.

The wording of the ballot question from June's special election allowing the town to raise taxes to fund $150,000 of the first year of the regional school district's capital plan has been causing a lot of confusion. The state Department of Revenue (DOR) raised questions about its legality.

Town Administrator Kevin Paicos received an e-mail from the DOR during the first week of August saying the officials at the state agency will allow for this issue to be carried out the way the voters wanted it.

The intent of the question was to see if residents would support a one-year capital exclusion to fund the first year of the AshburnhamWestminster School Committee's capital plan. But because of the way the question was worded, it invoked a permanent override of Proposition 2 1/2 - which allows a town to add the $150,000 to its tax collection forever.

The intent of the ballot question was to raise taxes for one year to collect the $150,000.

Selectman Mark Carlisle said, the way the question was worded it could be interpreted as a reoccurring override. He said that the issue boiled down to semantics.

"It was cloudy enough that it was open to interpretation," Carlisle said referring to the wording of the question.

Carlisle and his fellow selectmen agreed this was never the intention of the question.

"It was supposed to be an annual thing," said Carlisle.

He said this way, depending on how the year was going, voters could decide what whether to continue to fund the school district's capital plan.

School Committee member Keith Glenny assured the public at Board of Selectmen meeting on Aug. 7 that it was never the school committee's intention to pass a permanent override.

Also at the meeting, Selectman Christopher Gagnon informed his fellow selectmen and Paicos that he had been working with a representative from the DOR on the issue. Gagnon said he was speaking with Kathleen Colleary, the Chief of the Department of Revenue's Division of Local Services Tax Bureau, to find out what could be done.

Gagnon said that because of the way the law is written, a town with a regional school district can not apply for a capital exclusion. Colleary told him it seems like an anomaly in the law.

According to Gagnon, Colleary said when a town is part of a regional school district has applied for a capital exclusion, the DOR has let is slide as a one-time offer. This is what will happen in Ashburnham.

Gagnon said she encouraged the selectmen to petition their legislatures about amending the law, so it includes towns and cities in regional school districts. Gagnon said he sent a draft of the new wording to the two state senators and representatives. He did not show it to Selectmen Jonathan Dennehy or Carlisle before sending it, and in a later interview, said he should have.

Dennehy and Paicos also expressed concern at the meeting that Gagnon had taken responsibility of this issue and that he had not kept them up-to-date on it. Paicos had been the one working with the DOR up to this point.

Gagnon said he was not trying to go around Paicos; he said he "fell into it." He called Colleary to get a better explanation of the issue, and ended up having a long conversation that turned into him taking action.

Paicos said the next step is letting school officials know of the decision, so they can make plans and do certain things before the start of the school year.

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Karen Mann is a 2006 graduate of Emerson College, in Boston, where she studied journalism. She resides in Townsend with her parents.