TM passes public safety override

The last night of Norwood Town Meeting (TM) met on Thursday May 14 and voted to approve Articles 7 and 8 related to the Public Safety Override.

The Articles allow the Town to appropriate the funds if further dependent actions are approved. The override -- which allows the Town to raise its annual tax levy increase over the 2.5 percent to which Prop 2.5 limits every municipality in Massachusetts – still has to pass a Townwide ballot, set for June 15. For more information on the upcoming election, go to https://gvimes.link/npdnfdvote

The override would allow the Norwood Fire Department (NFD) to hire another 13 firefighters to allow the Town to come closer to the National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) standards based on the Town’s population and buildings – https://gvimes.link/firestandards

The override would also allow the Norwood Police Department (NPD) to hire another five officers (with the option for four more in the coming years) to help keep up with the increased number of emergency calls the department deals with. Article 7 dealt with salaries, which amounted to $1,270,339 for the NFD and $529,661 for the NPD, totaling about $1.8 million. Article 8 dealt with one-time equipment purchases and totaled $180,500.

All speakers at TM lauded the NFD and NPD in their comments on the Articles. But, there were a lot of ‘Buts’ on the Articles.

“Public safety deserves our strong support, but we shouldn’t be funding our departments separately, and it seems to me, the Town is telling our chiefs, ‘Sorry, you’re on your own,’” said Town Meeting member Steve Konetchy. “The Town has forced us into this override situation. Residents are being made to feel that opposing the override is opposing public safety, and that’s simply not fair.”

“There is no question that they need support up there and they did a great job at my house a few weeks ago during a situation, but I just don’t understand why – and I know this is hindsight – but why couldn’t we do this over many years, here or there?” said TM member Ed Lynch. “I just question the funding, because when you go to these overrides, they may not pass, and 13 firefighters is almost 25 percent of your staff, so I don’t know how they’ve been doing a great job. I probably couldn’t even begin to understand the stress those people – the police and fire – deal with. They’re one-of-a-kind. They need help, but I don’t know if you continuously have these overrides, it’s going to work.”

TM member Frank Nardelli introduced an amendment to reduce the firefighters by seven and reduce the amount appropriated to $1.1 million and move the appropriation from an override to use free cash.

“Today is our day of reckoning and sadly, it’s at the expense of our first line of defense: our police and fire departments – the very ones who keep our Town safe,” he said. “They should find a way to fund these expenses without having to do an override. The needs of the police and fire should always be made the priority, just as they make our safety their priority.”

Nardelli’s amendment would, if it was passed, ramp up the timeline for an expected upcoming operational override, according to Town Manager Tony Mazzucco’s presentation on Articles 7 and 8, before registered speakers got to the microphone.

“We’ve conducted a five-year financial forecast looking at two models: one is using free cash for staffing, two would be an override now,” he said. “Going with a tax override now – and nobody likes to raise taxes – is a permanent increase in the tax base to permanently fund a change in the level of service we provide,” he said. “If we were to use free cash now to do this, it would deplete that one-time resource for a level services budget and accelerate that override timeline by at least a year. So if we use free cash to fund this, we would definitely be looking at an override next year.”

Mazzucco added that using an override to fund the public safety increases may hold off the operational override by possibly three years.

“Also increases the likelihood of a larger override sooner,” he said. “If we go through the override now, a larger override will not be needed until fiscal year 2029. It allows for two additional years of new growth to hit the levy and ongoing commercial development does remain robust, which does continue to help offset how much money we need to use from the tax base.”

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Several residents spoke out against the amendment as well.

“I do not support this amendment, I feel like the changes have been made arbitrarily and I’m very concerned in this Town because we need additional EMS and fire support right now with the hospital being a shell,” said TM member Julia Leone. “To arbitrarily cut that budget in particular out of the whole proposal does not seem like a reasonable or fair approach.”

TM member David Roman-Martin said this was his first session as a TM member and that he actually got one of his required signatures to be put on the ballot to be a TM member from a neighbor who is an NFD firefighter.

“And he told me to advocate for the fire department, and I never thought it would come into play,” he said. “I’m honestly kind of dismayed that this is here. To claim this is helpful when it’s blatantly cutting from what the original thing was is not helpful. I understand people might have concerns about budgetary things, absolutely, but call it what it is. I think it’s disingenuous to come up here and say, ‘We support the fire department,’ and then say ‘But, we’re not going to give you exactly what you need.’”

The amendment failed 50 in favor to 122 opposed with three abstentions. Article 7 passed as it was originally presented 126 in favor to 40 opposed with six abstentions. Article 8 passed 143 to 24 with five abstentions.