To the editor:
Last Thursday, in a discussion of this year’s proposed $4.7 million town budget that lasted over an hour, the select board spent 30 minutes debating whether to eliminate a $1,500 allocation to the Equity Committee.
The claim that our government “shouldn’t be legislating equity” was repeated several times, and ultimately the board reached a compromise to cut the committee’s funding to $500.
Equity is not optional in government, it’s an obligation. The Fourteenth Amendment compels local government to guarantee for every person the “equal protection of the laws.” While the Constitution does not require us to have or fund an Equity Committee, I was concerned by the ideological argument that was made to defund and potentially dissolve it.
The town budget is set to rise by over 7% this year, with or without the Equity Committee appropriation. This line item represents just 0.03% of the total budget and did not increase at all year over year.
At one point a board member described the Equity Committee’s work as “performative.” If the goals of the committee are unclear or misaligned, that should certainly be addressed, as it would be with any committee. But spending half the budget review on one of the smallest line items is clearly disproportionate, performative, even.
That time could have been better spent finding meaningful ways to bring costs down for taxpayers.
The highlight of this discussion was when all select board members seemed to agree about concrete equity issues in our town that need addressing. These included ADA accessibility in pedestrian infrastructure and more equitable billing for utilities.
I hope that we can keep perspective, focus our time and energy wisely, and continue to prioritize equity for every person in Hardwick.
Joe Nudell
Hardwick
