HATFIELD — Town Meeting on Tuesday will begin a process to determine whether existing school and town services and staffing levels will remain in place and be enhanced, or whether significant cuts will have to be made.

Two operating budgets, one at $12.77 million and the other at $14.05 million that depends on a $1.26 million Proposition 2½ general override, are being presented at annual Town Meeting, beginning at 6:30 p.m. at Smith Academy gymnasium.

The override budget, if passed, also depends on a successful vote at the May 16 town election ballot.

The 27-article warrant also includes several proposed zoning changes and appropriations from the Community Preservation Act account.

At a recent forum, Finance Committee Chairman Darryl Williams said the override was set at an amount officials believe townspeople might support, both high enough to support current operations but not too low that challenges would remain in future years.

Select Board member Brian Moriarty said if voters support a balanced budget, instead, that would mean a 2.5% decrease in overall spending for departments.

The override amount would need to pass at both Town Meeting and the subsequent election, though Town Clerk Lydia Szych said if the election succeeds, but the vote at Town Meeting should fail, another session could be called.

“It gives the town opportunity to do more outreach and to have a special Town Meeting to try again to pass the budget,” Syzch said.

What’s at stake

Residents were apprised of some of the impacts they may feel.

School Committee member Adam Sullivan said $572,000 would be lost from the school budget, meaning that eight full-time teachers would be gone and the superintendent position would become half time. Classrooms at the elementary school would double in size and music and art instruction would be lost, along with four of seven advanced placement classes at Smith Academy, a second language option and junior varsity sports.

School officials have argued that the budget plan with an override is financially prudent, as spending will be offset by revenues achieved by bringing in more school choice students.

Police Chief Michael Dekoschak explained that police reform has already decimated the ranks of police forces, especially in western Massachusetts. “We can’t recruit people anymore,” Dekoschak said. His department has lost nine part-time people due to this, but he still has three full timers and three part timers who are full-time trained.

The override would maintain the current staffing, preserving the 16 hours a day, seven-days-a-week coverage.

“We do our best, we’re going to be here when we can be here,” Dekoschak said.

Fire Chief Robert Flaherty said the biggest change would be from staffing for the current ambulance is 16 hours, seven days a week, and overnight by on-call staff. This would be reduced to eight hours a day, five days a week coverage. “There’s a high likelihood that Hatfield ambulance will not serve 16 hours a day,” he said.

The town would also lose some $100,000 from the $160,000 or so in revenue ambulances bring in from billing patients’ insurance. Also, the storage of Fire Engine 2 on Depot Road would end and this truck would move downtown, displacing a Council on Aging van, as the engine needs to be in a heated, protected area.

Department of Public Works Director Phil Genovese said the goal is to have level services. But without an override, the transfer station hours would be reduced to Saturday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., the brush pile will no longer be free to all residents, and seasonal help for highway work would be gone.

Senior Center Director Geralyn Rodgers said programming could be more limited and more expensive.

“That’s going to cut what we’re going to do, or I’m going to have charge everybody for different functions,” Rodgers said.

Zoning changes

Zoning changes on the warrant include allowing commercial uses to the rural residential zoning on parcels at 6 and 12 Church Ave., a short street off Route 5 in West Hatfield that dead ends at Interstate 91, and changing 10 acres of rural residential road frontage at 127, 129 and 131 North Hatfield Road to light industrial.

There is also a proposal to rezone the parcels at 108 and 104 West St. to light industrial. The idea is to accommodate what Jeff Bruscoe is calling the Dogwood Inn Daycare & Overnight and Chestnut Cafe Breakfast & Lunch.

For capital improvement spending, $55,000 will develop a forestry management plan for the town watershed and $15,100 will go for new laptops for the ambulance and two fire trucks.

Spending from Community Preservation Act includes $400,000 to create new pickleball and tennis courts in town center, $25,000 for the town clerk to restore and preserve historic records, $10,000 for planting public shade trees in historic districts and $10,000 to begin the process of restoring Day Pond at Smith Academy.

There is also an ask of $55,934 from CPA to supplement $40,504 previously authorized for a new pavilion at Smith Academy Park, though an alternative from the Select Board recommends using a different funding source.

Voters could also authorize the Select Board to work with the city of Northampton on the Connecticut River Greenway, a multiuse trail that extends from Elm Court in Hatfield to Damon Road, running next to railroad tracks and offering views of the river, and recommend changes to the state flag, a project already under way by the Legislature. The petition comes from Hatfield Equity Alliance Fighting Racism Together, or HEART, which held a community presentation recently by David Detmold, a Montague resident and coordinator of ChangeTheMassFlag.com.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.]]>