By Andy Churchill

Sandy Pooler is wrapping up his second stint as Amherst’s finance director, having previously served in that role from 2010 to 2015. His municipal experience also includes 12 years in Newton as budget director and chief administrative officer, and seven years in Arlington as finance director and town manager. 

We asked him to reflect on Amherst’s fiscal picture. The conversation has been edited and condensed for length and clarity. 

In what ways is Amherst the same or different from when you were here before?

Amherst has had a long history of being well run financially. That continues. The assessor, treasurer, and comptroller are all competent and know what they are doing. In terms of budgeting, that hasn’t changed significantly. There’s a long history of people representing different parts of the budget – schools, municipal, library – talking together about the budget. The Budget Coordinating Group (BCG) has been a good way for those folks to discuss their needs together and agree on their spending guidelines before getting to the budgeting process. 

Unfortunately, this has broken down recently. I was disappointed to see the Regional School Committee vote a budget beyond what the BCG had previously agreed. That’s dangerous. You can’t take one stance on the town’s budget needs in BCG and take a different stance later when the school budget is going to the Town Council. With a new school committee and an interim superintendent, maybe not everybody was showing up for BCG meetings. But we need to get back to making sure everybody’s in the room having those conversations – and having a commitment to what comes out of those conversations.

What do you see as the biggest challenge Amherst faces?

I think the biggest challenge is the need for the town to really talk about its future. Amherst needs to come to grips with its long-term forecasts and look at the implications of different cost increases. 

I’ve analyzed our revenue stream. Amherst typically increases its revenue by 3 to 3½ percent each year. If you have demands on revenues that are higher than that, you just can’t sustain it. 

Other towns like Cambridge or Lexington can go up 4% or more per year. A strong commercial base and high property values can lead to lot of new tax growth. Amherst doesn’t have that rate of new growth. 

Is there a structural deficit? Are some parts of the budget asking to expand beyond what our fundamental dynamics can support? We really need to have a conversation about what kind of town we want to be. I don’t think there’s any one right answer, but people have to get on the same page.

To what extent is Amherst unique in its challenges, compared to other municipalities in which you’ve worked?

Every community I’ve worked in thinks it’s unique. [laughs] But frankly, they’re all the same in that they have to work within the constraints of Proposition 2½. That’s a major limit. Prop 2½ changed the whole picture in Massachusetts from an expense-driven to a revenue-driven budget process. 

You can only raise the total tax levy each year by 2½ percent, plus tax revenue on new growth/new construction in town, and revenues from fees like the excise tax. If you want to go beyond that, you can raise taxes further through an override, but there’s only so many you can do. You have to answer to the taxpayers about why we need to go beyond that limit.

I teach a class on budgeting at UMass Boston, and one of the things I tell them is, there are always more demands for spending than there is money. In every town there’s always pressure from school departments to increase spending. And in all towns there’s pressure from town departments to increase their spending, because there are demands from the public for more services – library hours, recreation programs, public safety, pave the roads more. All good and legitimate uses. 

No matter where you are, part of your job as a budget person is you have to say No more than you get to say Yes. 

So, yes, Amherst is unique – the same way 351 cities and towns are.

The perception of many Amherst residents is that we’re highly taxed. Would you say that’s the case?

Well, Amherst has a high tax rate. I would say this: I paid more in taxes for my house in Amherst than I do for my house in Somerville. I mean, Somerville has a huge commercial base. So the residential taxes are relatively lower. But yeah, I think people in Amherst are fairly highly taxed.

What about expanding the pie – do you think there are realistic ways for Amherst to increase its revenues beyond raising taxes?

Well, I do think the town could continue to develop its housing stock and commercial stock through changes it has made in zoning – and maybe additional changes it needs to make in the future. I think it’s an attractive place to work and build. 

There’s a pressing need for housing all across the state, including in Amherst. I think we’ve got to come to grips with that and allow the building of more housing – market rate housing, affordable housing, housing for seniors, all those things – and mixed use (housing and business combined). The town has made some moves in that direction, and I think you have to continue to look at that.

The town has set aside a lot of land for conservation. There’s a lot of land that’s also not taxable, because it’s in university hands. It’s a pretty high percentage in the town. That’s been great for preservation purposes, but it has really limited the tax base. So I think it’s going to be important for the town to open up for more development if we want to add to the revenue side.

What about more state aid?

In terms of state aid, I don’t see that changing much. The town gets unrestricted general government aid which has increased 2 to 3 percent a year over the last few years, and I think that will continue. And it gets education aid. But because Amherst schools aren’t growing but in fact are shrinking, the increase in state aid has been fairly minimal. 

I know people are looking at that. I know [Senator] Jo Comerford is looking at more aid for rural schools, transportation aid. Those are ideas that are being talked about. But they’re not enacted yet.

What about getting help from the colleges?

You know, I think the town for the last 50 years has been asking for more money for PILOT (Payments In Lieu Of Taxes from non-taxable entities). There’s always a lot of talk about that. I’ve always been skeptical that that is really going to happen. With UMass, it would involve getting the legislature to pass PILOT legislation and appropriate more money for that purpose.  

I think there’s certain people calling for the taxation of nonprofits like Amherst or Hampshire colleges. But it’s a contentious issue. The nonprofits, the colleges in particular, have strong arguments against it, both because of the impact that they think they already have on the local economies and the fact that there are some that have a lot of money, but some that don’t have a lot of money. 

There are all these issues. Do you tax colleges, but not hospitals? What about churches? Where do you go? I think there are going to continue to be conversations about that. But I don’t hold out a lot of hope that there’s likely to be major changes in that area coming from the legislature. And I doubt that either institution is going to voluntarily give up millions of dollars unless they’re forced to.

It feels like we are coming to a hard place with the school budgets. Enrollments are down; costs are up; state aid has been flat; federal Covid funds are drying up. Do we need to rethink how we do education in Amherst?

I did look at this. Enrollments peaked in 2003; they’re down 41% since then. I think the school committee is going to have to come to grips with asking for budget increases over what Amherst brings in every year, while they have decreasing enrollment. And I think they’re going to have to then come to grips with the scope of programming that they offer. When you had hundreds more students, particularly at the middle and high school levels, you could offer a wider range of classes. And if you just don’t have as many kids, well, frankly, that’s the difference between a big high school and a small high school. What can you offer?

Clearly, school spending cannot go up at the rates that the school committee is asking unless there are overrides going forward. You can’t decimate the town side of the budget. I mean, it’s just not that big. You can’t decimate capital spending because it’s going to cost you more in the long run. You do have to say No sometimes to things.

On the regional school budget, the town manager initially proposed a 4% increase, but the Council is likely to approve a 6% increase, which the other three towns have approved. What happens to our fiscal picture if we go for the 6% amount?

It’s pretty much a done deal now that other towns have voted it. Using federal AARPA funds as a one-time deal is doable, I think. But we have to realize, that is creating a $335,000 deficit next year, because those funds won’t be there. Plus there’s another half-million dollars in federal ESSER [Covid] funds that aren’t going to be there next year either. 

So right off the bat, you’ve got an $830,000 deficit going into next year, because we’re funding ongoing costs with one-time federal funds that won’t be there. 

So what do we do about it?

The school committee and the town need to have a deep conversation about trends in enrollment and spending. [Town Manager] Paul Bockelman has talked about putting together some kind of blue-ribbon commission, so that it’s not just within the confines of the school committee that this conversation is happening, because, frankly, it impacts more than just the school committee. 

I think the voters really need to understand what the dynamics are. I mean, is it that we need to cut back on the number of classes? Is it that we need to increase class size? Is it that contracts are such that going forward you have to adjust the amount that that pay is going up every year? I don’t know what the answers are, but I think those are the questions need to be asked, and some kind of blue-ribbon commission to do that would be very important.

Is that in the works?

There’s been discussion about it. I haven’t heard yet that there’s a commitment on from all parties to do that. It would include staff and residents and local experts and have a broad town scope. Maybe we get people from UMass or Amherst College. It’s got to have some credibility to it, so that people feel that serious people have really taken a look.

When you were here last, we still had Town Meeting. How do you think Amherst’s new manager-council form of government is working?

One of the problems with Town Meeting was that there was a small group of town residents whose voices were overly loud in the town meeting context. They tended to kind of say the same things, over and over. They tended to be distrustful of town leadership, not willing to accept what were, I think, fairly clear facts. And it was destructive of being able to implement good public policy. So I think a council where that is not happening is a much more productive way to talk about public policy issues.

You know, one of the things I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about in my career is, how do you share ideas with the public and get public feedback? And frankly, I think open public hearings are one way to do it, but they’re not by any means the only, or even necessarily the best way to do it. 

How else can we get public input?

Well, we do live in a representative democracy. So the fact that people vote for councilors or school committee members to then represent them during these discussions is a fundamental part of our government system. That’s how it’s set up, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We don’t just give everybody a clicker and say, okay, tomorrow everybody go and vote. There is wisdom in electing people and having them talk among themselves and get into the details. 

Just sharing information in a written report or a YouTube or whatever, and then letting people discuss that among themselves, and then express their opinions to town leaders, to their elected officials, is a perfectly legitimate way to share information. You can do other things. You could do a poll at one point and just ask people their opinion. You could do focus groups. 

There are all sorts of ways to try to get at what affects people. But just open mics tend to attract sort of the same cluster of people, saying the same thing over and over again. Frankly, it’s effective only to a certain extent. And I think there’s a tendency to want to over-rely on it.

Is Amherst a hard place for staff to work, compared to other places?

I’ve worked in a number of communities that have highly involved, highly educated, highly motivated people. I mean, if you think Amherst is hard, try working in Newton! But hey, that’s local government. 

I think Amherst is a good place to work. I always have really enjoyed it here. I think the staff works very well together. And I think there’s been a long history of Amherst being able to attract quality staff. I think we’ve got some great department heads. 

I don’t think there’s any issue with people not wanting to work in Amherst. I think it’s a way better place to work than a lot of other communities. The town is well-staffed. It has the resources. You’re not one person trying to do everything. And you know that makes a big difference.

What do you wish most that Amherst residents understood about our situation?

I’d say two things. First, I think there’s a high level of commitment from town leadership to provide quality services to all residents of the town. And I think the town staff works very hard to provide accurate information and to do high quality work. So I think people have the right to have faith in the town staff.

Second, right now, Amherst is a 3 to 3½ percent community – that’s how much your revenue is going to go up every year. And so you’re going to have to make decisions every year about what you are going to do with that revenue. Sometimes meaning you’re going to have to say No to some things that are really good ideas. 

I think I said this years ago in town meeting: if you give me your money I will spend it. But you get to decide how much of your money you give, and then you have to come to grips with the policy or services implications of that.

The only thing that’s constant in any town in Massachusetts is the fact that there’s change. Amherst isn’t going to be the same town it was in 1969 or 1952, or whatever. I think there’s some people who moved into town, back in the 60s or 70s or 80s, and they say, I don’t want the town ever to change. Well, you know what? It’s always changing. And so I think you just have to think about how you manage that change.

What’s next?

Being fully retired. Actually, the one work thing I’m doing is this graduate course on budgeting and finance at UMass Boston. That’s fun and interesting. I like teaching. So, that and traveling and reading. All that retirement stuff.