BELCHERTOWN — Since the first week in March, Belchertown has wrestled with the proper approach to the financial fiscal cliff that’s in front of them — a $1.6 million level-service budget shortfall in the school department that will eliminate 30 positions and close Cold Spring School.

On top of that, the town’s operating budget is facing a roughly $200,000 gap, and a half million dollar grant that funds six firefighters will soon expire.

With little savings in town coffers, few new businesses to grow tax revenue and a long-term financial plan still in its early phases, the Select Board this spring agreed to ask voters to approve a $2.9 million Proposition 2½ override to prop up the school and town budgets for fiscal year 2026, which begins July 1.

On Monday, voters get to weigh in at the town election, which will take place at Belchertown High School starting at 8 a.m.

Residents remain split on the proper course of action.

One side of the debate argues that the override is the necessary cash infusion to keep the School Department, Fire Department and municipal government alive.

Others, however, fear that this permanent increase in taxes will bleed out their own budgets, putting their financial stability in jeopardy just to cover the town’s poor budgeting practices.

If approved by a simple majority on Monday, the $2,894,400 override would go toward the base level-service budgets in town, including $1.6 million for the schools, $198,244 for the town, and $500,000 for capital projects. In addition, the override will provide $437,000 for six firefighters’ salaries when the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant expires next February. An additional $57,920 will keep the town’s grant manager and $65,000 will go toward the ambulance lease.

Residents can calculate the monetary impact of the override using a digital calculator on the town’s website. The average home in Belchertown will pay an additional $420 to $540 in property taxes annually if the override passes.

Changing minds, one at a time

Mother Jillian Hall was initially skeptical when she heard about the school department’s budget shortfall. She had a lot of questions about where the town’s money went, she said, and wanted to know the person to blame. Eventually she learned that this budget shortfall was not one person’s fault, but the result of rising inflation and fixed costs absorbing the town’s limited revenue.

“Since 2002 funding for the schools had gone down from 65% of the town’s budget to 53%,” Hall said. “Considering fixed costs, the actual resources of the schools have gone down significantly since 2002. The schools have been underfunded and they’ve been surviving outside of the public view.”

Shocked by the revelation, Hall jumped into action and led door-knocking efforts for “Invest in Belchertown,” a grassroots campaign of parents, school staff and community members in support of the Proposition 2½ override. In addition to speaking at public meetings, filming a series of educational videos and handing out flyers in school drop off lines, the group has knocked on at least 2,000 doors, had hundreds of conversations with residents and put mail fliers in every mailbox.

“It’s been a very complicated, confusing, evolving topic so we felt like we wanted to do our due diligence to get the right information out into voter’s hands,” Hall said. “We knew that a lot of people didn’t understand what an override is, why we needed it, why it’s a positive tool and doesn’t mean that someone did something wrong.”

Jake Hulseberg, one of the founders of Invest in Belchertown, calls the override a built-in pressure valve for the local tax system. When inflation rates outpace the 2.5% tax levy, residents can vote to raise the levy percentage. According to his data collection, Belchertown spends less per resident for public safety and public works than many communities in the area or to similarly-sized towns in Massachusetts. The percentage of income spent on taxes is also a lower percentage than elsewhere, he said.

“Essentially no matter which one you look at, Belchertown is below average, which tells you it’s a levy problem,” Hulseberg said. “I think that the biggest fact is that we spent $4,000 less than our surrounding towns per pupil.”

Costs are skyrocketing across the board, especially in state-mandated special education services, and students needs continue to grow despite municipal revenue remaining flat, Hall said.

“The needs of students are much greater. I have a very high energy first grader myself, so these teachers are already going above and beyond,” Hall said.

With such a large fiscal gap, the School Committee has no choice but to slash the largest portion of its budget — staff. At the elementary school level, proposed cuts would include one kindergarten teacher, one teacher in each grade from first through fifth, and two reading specialists. Jabish Brook Middle School would lose a Spanish teacher, and Belchertown High School would lay off an English teacher, science teacher, history teacher and Spanish teacher. The district’s music program in particular would take a hit with the loss of Chestnut Hill Community School band teacher and the Jabish Brook Middle School’s music teacher.

The positions listed above leave out employees at Cold Spring School, who would lose their jobs if the district is forced to close the school a year earlier than planned.

Losing these 30 positions and a school would increase class sizes significantly, giving students less instructional, social and support time with teachers, educators say.

Hulseburg’s years of experience in education — he currently serves as the principal at Wilbraham Middle School — taught him that schools function more like a micro community than a business. When someone is laid off in the business world, another person can slip into the job and keep the machine’s cogs running, he said. Schools require years to rebuild programs and the relationships between staff and students every time something is lost.

“We are not seeing all that’s at stake just by a list on a paper,” Hall said. “We are not understanding the interpersonal opportunities that we don’t know we missed because it’s in those little moments between those staff and students present in the school that we don’t see that make all the difference.”

‘They didn’t do their due diligence’

A couple days ago, longtime resident Tracy Fleming-Mahue discovered a flier in her mailbox paid for by the Massachusetts Teachers Association encouraging her to vote in favor of the override. It’s a negotiation year between the district and the union representing educators in Belchertown, and Fleming-Mahue viewed the flier as another reminder that the override is a bail out for the schools to fund teacher salaries.

“They’ve [the School Committee] had since 2021 to balance their budget and they have not,” Fleming-Mahue said. “Last year they knew about this shortfall and all they did was push that [Jabish Brook Middle School Building Project].”

Another resident, Carole Hinkey, points out that enrollment continues to drop despite the School Department asking for more money. Hinkey grew up in Belchertown as part of the largest graduating class at the time, roughly 180 students. She remembers when 7-12 grades shared Jabish Brook and had class sizes bigger than now, but the School Committee “says their breaking through the seams of the high school, and they don’t have close to that many students.”

“They can’t figure things out,” she continues.

Hinkey wants to sell her house in a couple years, but she worries that increases in Belchertown’s housing market and property taxes will deter young families from moving to town. Her daughter won’t look for a home in Belchertown and Fleming-Mahue said her daughter lives in Ludlow and her friends live in every other surrounding town besides Belchertown because they are unable to afford it.

“How can you get affordable housing with taxes like this?” Fleming-Mahue said. “You will pay off your mortgage but you will never pay off the taxes.”

As taxes rise, the majority of the town’s population over 50 years old feel the burden, both Hinkey and Fleming-Mahue said. A Proposition 2½ override is a permanent increase in the tax base that never goes away, a fact that Hinkey said many families she spoke with were surprised to hear. While Invest in Belchertown breaks down the property tax override as dollars per day, equating it to the cost of a daily coffee, Fleming-Mahue cautions that these dollars are not for coffee, but go toward medicines, food and utilities.

“Sometimes it’s not that you cannot afford it, but sometimes you aren’t going to afford it,” she said.

Select Board gets on board

When the Select Board first discussed the override in March, board members were as divided as residents. They split 3-2 on whether to present an override to voters, and, once they agreed to do that, they split on the initial $3.2 million request.

“The Select Board has said this is not a solution,” Fleming-Mahue said. “This is a short-term immediate fix, especially for the school.”

But once parents and school staff began speaking about the impacts of the fiscal year 2026 budget shortfall, the board united with the Finance Committee to support the $2.9 million override before voters on Monday.

“I think I’m going to throw my support to the override as a public official,” said Nicole Miner, one of the Select Board member who has spoken against the override since the beginning. “Do I want to be right, or do I want to be effective? That’s a no-brainer for me, I want to be effective.”

That change of heart, Hulseburg said, is by far the most surprising, and telling, result of Invest in Belchertown.

“We’ve struggled to tell the town of Belchertown, but your leaders who struggle with these decisions every single day, they think this is reasonable,” Hulesburg said. “It shows you listening and critically thinking because new facts come out along the way. I really commend those members of the Select Board and Finance Committee members, that’s what we want our leaders to be doing.”

The election takes place at Belchertown High School from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.