Reprinted from the Arlington Advocate. Written by Annie LaCourt and Charles Foskett.

In this highly charged political season we hear from Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians and contrarians, from the Left and the Right that all is not well with government at all levels, that there have been too many promises made and too few kept. Such may be the case elsewhere, but at least in Arlington one major promise that was solemnly made has been solemnly kept: The Five Year Plan.

Initially proposed by former Selectman Charlie Lyons, it was later adopted by the Board of Selectmen, the School Committee and the Finance Committee as part of a compact with Arlington’s voters in the Spring of 2005: If the voters approved the $6 million Proposition 2½ override in 2005, the Town and School would strictly adhere to the Plan’s spending limits and insure that no additional overrides would be required for at least five years, while remaining committed to conserving core services.

The Plan was simple in concept: hold operating budgets to 4% growth, constrain health insurance and other benefits to 7% growth, make some assumptions about state aid revenue growth, use the $6 million to cover a $4 million gap while banking the balance in reserves to cover the structural deficit that eats away yearly at fiscal stability. According to plan, those reserves would last five years. While simple in concept, the Plan has been punishingly difficult in practice.

Arlington, with virtually no undeveloped land, has little opportunity for new revenue growth through commercial or residential development. Core inflation runs over 3% per year, but Proposition 2½ constrains local government tax revenues from increasing more than 2½% per year. Adding the nearly doubling of fuel costs in recent years, the annual double-digit increases in health insurance costs, salary raises employees needs to meet inflation increases in their own budgets, the statewide rise in special education costs, government mandated program increases in pension funding, and fluctuations in local receipts and state aid, and we have a recipe for fiscal failure. That didn’t happen in Arlington.

At a policy level, the Board of Selectmen and School Committee remained committed to the Plan despite rough sailing. The responsibility for implementation fell primarily on the Town Manager and Superintendent of Schools. Each exercised personal leadership, professional management and fiscal discipline. Internal organizations were restructured. Vendor costs were negotiated down. Administrative and operating efficiencies were broadly introduced.

Throughout the Town and School departments, Arlington’s most valuable asset, its highly skilled employees worked with management to adapt to new practices and new technology in order to deliver the same services with fewer resources. Union leadership worked with Town and School management to adopt new health insurance programs with better benefits, but with employees adopting more of the cost burden. This is an ongoing process and a stressful discussion at best. The town’s employees should be commended for their willing participation in the hard decisions that needed to be made.

Despite these efforts to control costs, difficult choices have been made in both the town and school budgets. Because inflation in healthcare costs and state mandates are not entirely within our control, rising costs in some areas have necessitated cuts in others. The Board of Selectmen and the Town Manager have worked hard to hold the line on cuts in public safety and basic public works services such as trash collection and snow removal. The School Committee and the Superintendent have adhered to the goal of concentrating resources in the classroom. But in each year of the plan some positions have had to be cut or responsibilities reassigned in order to stay within the budget limits that are the bedrock of the plan. This has been painful and sometimes unpopular, but necessary in order to keep faith with the voters.

Arlington is alone among the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts in having both adopted and adhered to such a five year plan. The beneficial result of vision and leadership by the Board of Selectmen and School Committee, of professional management by both Town Manager and School Superintendent and energetic teamwork by Town and School employees is that Arlington is entering the fourth fiscal year of the Five Year Plan, and we are on Plan and on Budget.

It cannot be stressed enough how innovative this planning process is. Other municipalities look to Arlington’s model when considering formulating their own long term plans. We are still the only community that has tied a long term commitment to fiscal restraint to an override vote.

If the expected Commonwealth budget crisis is not too devastating to the State’s local aid distribution and the economy’s impact on local receipts is not too unfavorable, Arlington may exit the Five Year Plan with some financial reserves to help address our structural deficit of the next five year cycle. The financial projection for 2011 in the original plan showed a 4.1 million dollar deficit at the bottom line. The combined creativity and effort of elected officials, the Town Manager and Superintendent of Schools, and town employees have reduced that projected deficit by half. That is a huge accomplishment even though the uncertainty of future state aid may erase some of it.

Former Select Board Chair Kevin Greely and current Chair Annie LaCourt have instituted a quarterly “Financial Summit” to gather Town and School leaders and citizens in an open forum to help understand and document a common fact base, organize priorities and find solutions for the five year period of Fiscal years 2011 through 2015. The incoming chairs of both School and Select boards are committed to continuing this process. Our carefully husbanded financial reserves will have successfully brought us through the current Plan period, but will barely address the next. An important role of the Financial Summit process is to quantify our needs, set expectations and help an informed Town-wide leadership and citizenry determine Arlington’s future.

Perhaps the most important result of a five-year forward looking planning window is the ability to be proactive about meeting future challenges. This idea of looking deep into the future is now a part of our political culture. We cannot control all of the forces that affect our future nor will all our predictions be perfect. The voters and taxpayers of Arlington can, however, be assured that their local government can and will make promises it can keep.