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Manor questions dominate Special Town Meeting
Mary Ann Bragg
Banner Staff
A property tax override may be needed in Provincetown to finance the transition of the town’s nursing home to private ownership, the town Finance Committee said this week in its Town Meeting report.
The FinCom has endorsed the three Cape End Manor nursing home articles on the Special Town Meeting warrant (see Finance Committee Message, page 9). Town Meeting is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 25.
The votes of support came after a “frank discussion,” Town Manager Keith Bergman said, on the town’s financial burden in the next few years as Manor operations are handed over to a new company.
“The costs associated with an exit from the nursing home business, at a time when town revenues are coming in below budget, could easily cause the town to exceed the Proposition 2 1/2 tax levy limit,” FinCom members said. “Avoiding [that] will require courage and creativity from the Board of Selectmen and contributions from the entire community.”
Prop 2 1/2 refers to a state law, approved at the ballot in 1980, that sets an absolute ceiling on property taxes for each town, based on the total valuation of property. In Provincetown the total valuation in 2004 was $2 billion.
Prop 2 1/2 also sets annual “levy limits” that can be overridden by ballot vote, which is what Provincetown may face.
In Provincetown the million-dollar parking revenues garnered during the summer tourist season have allowed taxpayers to avoid even the threat of a levy limit override. In 1994, for example, the town could have taxed property owners another $1 million before even hitting the levy limit that year.
The parking revenue cushion has been eaten away with the Manor’s increasing fiscal deficits and with increases in employee health insurance costs.
Last week FinCom member Matthew Clark prepared an analysis, based on Bergman’s 10-year fiscal policy plan, that showed the need for a levy limit override in 2006, particularly with the costs of moving the Manor to private operation. That transition could cost the town at least $1 million, town staff has said.
In response to Clark, both Bergman and Manor CEO Dennis Anderson responded with “sharpened pencils.”
“That’s not the situation we were intending to recommend,” Bergman said this week, adding that the Manor figures in his 10-year fiscal plan had not been fully refined for 2006 and beyond. “It’s a matter of taking another look back at what [Manor] spending assumptions need to change.”
Last Friday Bergman released a revision of the fiscal plan that increase taxes up to the Prop 2 1/2 levy limits in 2005, 2006 and 2007 but do not require an override. For example, Bergman proposed that Town Meeting vote to tax property owners to the levy limit in 2005 and set aside the extra money in a stabilization fund for use in years where an override could be needed.
The town’s total operating budget is around $20 million.
“I believe that we will be able to develop a strategy for coping within the limits of Proposition 2 1/2, and its my strong feeling that the voters of Town Meeting want us to do that,” Bergman said. “And I hope we see a strong showing of a genuine community consensus to pursue the [Manor transition]. It’s going to be a rough couple of years but the rewards are just so great, with the sustained [nursing home] services and the extended services, and ultimately a lessening of the property tax burden.”
The FinCom learned last week that the Manor resident count had dropped to 33, out of 60 total beds available, in what has been a steady decline in the last several months.
In Bergman’s revised plan and in the FinCom report, the Selectmen are asked to making spending cuts and use “creativity” and “courage” to avoid a Prop 2 1/2 override. In response Selectmen chair Cheryl Andrews said this week that the board, to her regret, is split on setting property tax limits. “I wish I had had a third vote to sit down and ask the hard questions a few years ago to avoid this,” Andrews said.
Andrews generally characterized Selectmen Richard Olson and Michele Couture as liberal in their fiscal policies, herself and Selectman Sarah Peake as conservative and Selectman Mary-Jo Avellar as unpredictable.
“It’s a disappointment,” Andrews said. “It’s very hard to stir the pot and say to people, gee, we really need to make some tough, tough decisions. There just doesn’t seem to be the political demand there. My concern is more long term, that there is a clear trend going on here, if you wait until people are screaming. That’s a scary proposition. If you don’t tighten the belt when you see a problem coming, what kind of catastrophe are you walking into?”
The primary Manor article, out of three on the Town Meeting warrant, will provide initial authorization for a land and parking revenue deal between the town and the Roman Catholic Bishop of Fall River. The deal will provide the town with land that would then be given to a private company for an expanded Manor “care campus” health care facility.
“We believe that voting for these three [Manor] articles gives the town the best possible chance of receiving attractive care campus proposals from bidders,” FinCom members said. The FinCom report follows with a caveat that the board’s affirmative vote for the Manor articles offers no guarantee of success. “What it does do is give us the chance to explore, prior to [April] Town Meeting, real proposals from qualified entities to transform the Manor into a care campus. We have a moral obligation to the 33 current Manor residents (of whom 15 are long term placements with Provincetown ties), and to the 49 Manor employees (about half of whom live in Provincetown) to see what the bidders propose.”
A Request for Proposals, to find a private company to create the Manor “care campus,” was released earlier this month and the bids will be opened in early December.
Town Manger Bergman said that a Manor transition date of December 2005 is now under consideration by Town Hall, rather than December 2006.
In addition to the three Manor articles, voters will be asked on Monday to allow the town to place a lien against the property of sewer users who fail to pay their annual operating costs. Provincetown Art Association and Museum will seek public support for a sewer connection, and resident Peter Bez will lead a grassroots attempt to schedule property tax bills semi-annually rather than quarterly.
In Article 10 Resident Peter Souza will seek to create a park within the Cape Cod National Seashore that would disallow hunting, and a housekeeping article for the town Public Pier Corporation regulations is set for a vote as well.
The final three articles in the warrant are competing zoning amendments to the town’s adult entertainment bylaw. The last two articles were brought by petition over concerns about the potential for live, nude performances in residential neighborhoods and in outdoor venues, based on a bylaw change last April.
The Selectmen chose to place the two petitioned articles at the end to ensure good attendance throughout the evening. Petitioner Terese Nelson said this week, though, that the Selectmen’s treatment of those articles, of deliberately placing them late into the evening, was inconsiderate to elderly voters and voters with families. Nelson said she expects to see a motion on Monday to move the articles forward in the warrant.
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Oct 21st, 2004