Marblehead School Tax Override Vote Fails In Landslide

MARBLEHEAD, MA — A six-month push for increased school funding that Marblehead officials said was necessary to make up for deferred updates in technology, security, personnel and curriculum — as well as free kindergarten for all town students — came to a crashing halt on Tuesday when a $3.1-million Proposition 2 1/2 tax override to fund the initiatives failed overwhelmingly.

Nearly 70 percent of the almost 6,000 residents who turned out to vote rejected the general override that would have cost homeowners a recurring 4 percent increase in property taxes each year.

A capital improvement debt exemption override to fund sidewalks, building maintenance and other town projects did pass comfortably with about 60 percent of the vote.

All five Select Board members — Jackie Belf-Becker, Moses Grader, James Nye, Erin Noonan and Alexa Singer — won re-election out of a seven-candidate field.

Sarah Fox retained her spot on the School Committee, where she will now be joined by Alison Taylor.

In other contested elections, John Attridge beat out Matthew Wolverton for town moderator, Pam Peterson topped Rose Ann McCarthy for the cemetery commission spot, Helaine Hazlett kept her spot on the Board of Health with a narrow victory against challenger Thomas McMahon, and Michael Hull and Jean-Jacques Yarmoff were elected to the Municipal Light Commission, according to a preliminary vote count.

While turnout for spring town elections is typically modest, that was not the case in Marblehead on Tuesday when a heavy turnout forced the use of photocopied ballots late in the day that then had to be hand-counted because the scanner could not read them.

That delayed results well past midnight.

The school budget override — likely the major vote-driver among residents — failed after months of meticulously crafting and justifications before the town Finance Committee, at annual town meeting and a series of public forums.

"These are immediate, ongoing needs in our schools that have been deferred as we have worked to maximize every dollar in our budget," School Committee Chair Sarah Gold said as part of her presentation at the third of the forums last week. "These are needs that will not go away and not meeting them directly impacts our students, teachers and staff.

"We are falling behind in meeting the needs of the kids in our district. If further deferred, these needs will only become more expensive."

Gold said it is estimated that delaying these priorities by just one year will cost an extra $192,000 to meet them. But that was not enough to sway opponents who said the override was too much amid declining school enrollment and with a town-wide general override almost certainly looming next year to make up for what has been called a "structural budget deficit."

The school override proposal sought $2.17 million in "recurring" costs and $880,471 in "one-time" costs. However, officials said the funding for those one-time capital costs will be required each year moving forward to meet more capital needs as they have been prioritized and will develop over time.

The override proposal sought about $1.13 million in personnel positions, $585,000 in safety improvements, $56,000 in technology improvements, $282,000 for the new curriculum and $375,000 for the tuition-free kindergarten. It also included $497,000 for the recurring benefits from the new staff instead of putting that burden on the general town budget.

Among the costs debated at public forums was the proposed Directory of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the schools — a position that would have cost more than $100,000 annually.

Superintendent John Buckey called the position a necessity.

"We've had a number of incidents of homophobia, of racism, classism, transphobia, antisemitism," Buckey said at the final public forum. "So this will really provide a support for classroom teachers working with students when issues of lack of inclusion practices come up."

The override would have added about $310.53 per year to the median single-family home bill of a Marblehead resident with a property assessed at $738,000. Property assessed at $400,000 would incur a $168.31 increase, while a $1 million home would incur a $420.77 increase.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)