After a flawed rollout of its annual budget survey — originally released Monday, Mar. 16 and taken offline shortly thereafter — the Board of Finance held a special meeting Tuesday evening to fix errors and reissue the document. However, they declined to resolve concerns that one key question may yield confusing or unreliable results.
The meeting focused largely on correcting technical issues, including broken links, incorrect dates and formatting inconsistencies. But it also surfaced a broader concern raised by Selectman Matt Raimondi — the former BOF chair and primary architect of the last few versions of the survey — about how the survey presents a proposed 3.0% mill rate increase.
That concern centered on a disconnect between the survey and the town’s published budget notice. While the survey asks residents whether they support a mill rate increase of 3.0%, the public notice — based on the currently proposed Board of Selectmen and Board of Education budgets — reflects an estimated increase closer to 1.2%.
The question reads: “Do you support a Mill rate of 25.4, which reflects an annual increase of 3.0%? As a reminder, the mill rate increase generally represents the average property tax increase that residents can expect.”
In an email he sent to BOF members Tuesday, Raimondi noted that the higher 3.0% figure appears to incorporate additional assumptions — such as allocating more funding to reserves or capital — that are not explained in the survey itself. Without that context, he warned, residents may assume the proposed budgets alone would result in a 3.0% tax increase, when the calculated impact of those budgets is significantly lower.
“If that is the case, the survey may benefit from briefly explaining those assumptions so respondents understand how the number was derived,” Raimondi wrote.
“As currently drafted, if residents indicate that they oppose a 3.0% increase, it will be difficult to interpret what that actually means,” he wrote, noting that responses could reflect opposition to the budgets, the assumptions behind the higher number, or confusion about how the figure was derived.
“Without that context, the results may be difficult to interpret and could lead to conclusions that do not accurately reflect residents’ views,” he added.
BOF member Prasad Iyer was the only voice during Tuesday’s Zoom meeting to echo Raimondi’s concern.
“I think there are some valid points there about the whole mill rate change … We will not get anything concrete out of the survey,” Iyer said, reinforcing Raimondi’s point.
“Here we’re making the statement that the goal is to limit the mill rate increase to below 3.0%,” he said. “I don’t think people really understand what that means.”
BOF member Kari Roberts suggested adding some language to clarify how the 3.0% figure was calculated, but other members pushed back, arguing that doing so would require a more comprehensive explanation of the full budget process — including several variables that remain in flux.
BOF Chair Tim Birch made clear from the start that he didn’t want members to hash out the language of the survey in greater detail, as they had already lost time by having to retract their first version.
“If we go down that road, we should just scrap the survey because we’re going to spend an enormous amount of time trying to wordsmith our way through that,” Birch said, also arguing that he felt the question was clear enough for their purposes.
The back-and-forth revealed a bigger issue at the root of the discrepancy: the town’s budget isn’t fully settled yet. Key decisions — including how much to set aside for reserves and estimated debt service — are still up in the air. As a result, the survey’s hypothetical 3.0% figure reflects a broader planning estimate, while the 1.2% figure is based on the currently proposed budgets — a distinction the survey doesn’t explicitly state.
Ultimately, Roberts backed off of changing the question.
“I don’t think it’s confusing,” she said. “You’re just saying our goal is to keep the mill rate [at 3.0%] … I get what Matt’s saying but I don’t think it’s confusing.”
Iyer stood by his concern with the mill rate question.
“If I was not on Board of Finance, I would not know how to respond to this question … All I’m saying is, very simplistically, I don’t agree with this,” he said.
Vice Chair Rudy Escalante said Iyer was “creating confusion where there isn’t any.”
“I don’t believe there’s been any confusion in the general population of this question and we’ve had it for the last couple years,” Escalante said, noting that the only confusion related to when the reevaluation took place two years ago.
BOF member Kim Healy pointed out that at the start of the survey is a link to what they describe as an “explainer,” which provides information on the budget process.
“There are lots of opportunities for people to learn all about it,” she said.
Raimondi also suggested that if any substantive changes were made after the survey was released and then taken offline, the board should consider disregarding any responses it had received and “reissuing the survey so that all respondents are reacting to the same version,” he wrote.
BOF member Eric Fanwick, who oversaw publication of the survey, said five people responded before it was taken offline.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he said.
When it came time for the BOF members to vote, Iyer abstained from both of the two otherwise-unanimous votes — one, to approve the revised survey, and the other to approve a revised press release about the survey, which originally linked to the wrong version of the Board of Selectmen budget.
The revised survey is expected to be reissued this week following final corrections to links and supporting materials.