Town officials have made public a budget draft that includes a $4.5 million Proposition 2 1/2 override as one of the two budgets that will go to Town Meeting next month.

"Through additional revenue and making cuts, we would be able to maintain services we currently provide and invest in the town, our financial stability and measures to save money in the long term," said Town Administrator Derek Sullivan, March 27.

The other budget that will be put before Town Meeting on April 28 has deep cuts to every department, including the near elimination of funding for the Council on Aging and the library, and the layoff of 45 employees. The budget with the $4.5 million override still makes significant cuts but, officials said, provides for the investments needed to maintain a healthy, functioning town and close the gap between expenses that are growing faster than revenues.

"I don't think anybody relishes the idea of the override, but if we're going to invest in our community and we're going to go forward, we need to stop this and position ourselves," said Finance Committee Chairman Larry McDonald.

"This is the ticket for taking Wareham from the 1920s to the 2020s," said Selectman Judith Whiteside. "We are, in fact, investing in our town."

The additional revenue for fiscal year 2015 would fund six new police recruits, four math and reading specialists in the elementary schools and a human resources director to be shared by the school and town.

"An HR director will usually save you money," said Sullivan. "Having what is essentially a company with a $60 million budget without an HR director is crazy."

He said staff additions would also include clerical and maintenance workers, which would alleviate some of the need for high-priced outside contractors for things like heating and air-conditioning work.

The override would also provide more funding to the Council on Aging and library, fund summer youth jobs in a recreation and lifeguard program, and provide for capital improvement spending.

In talking about the capital spending, Sullivan referred to the rot in the Old Town Hall, now used by WCTV, as an example of a problem that is costly to fix because it was not prevented.

"If you don't take care of what you have, it costs you more in the long run," he said.

Sullivan said for the owner of a home assessed at Wareham's average of $230,264 would pay increased taxes $329.34 per year if the override passes.

He said residents can get the assessed value of their home on the town website, take that number, divide it by 1,000 and multiply that by $1.43 to find each individual's override cost.

Sullivan said that, without an override and continued cuts in the years ahead, the town will have fewer teachers, police officers and other staff, less money for building maintenance, reductions in services, higher borrowing rates and a lack of money for emergency spending.

Sullivan said most of the budget cuts in previous years have come from staff reductions, and without an override the town would still need to make millions of dollars in cuts year after year.

"I'd be interested to see over the next four or five years where people could locate $1.5 to $2 million in salary cuts and see the town and schools still function," he said.

"I was hopeful every single year we'd be able to whittle a little away here and there and get away with it. But we just can't do that anymore," said Selectman Peter Teitelbaum. "I don't even know about next year, where do we cut?"

"At some point it was need versus want, now we're at need versus need. Now we're saying we need both of these what do we cut?" said McDonald. "We need to quit being reactive. We need to be proactive."

Selectman Alan Slavin said even if an override were to pass, the town still needs to change how it operates and continue to look at ways to cut costs, look at opportunities for regionalization and consolidate services to save the town money.

"A key element of this plan is developing benchmarks and methods showing the leadership of Wareham will support and embrace sound fiscal management. What we need is a policy or directive to review the results versus the plan on quarterly or semi-annual basis,” said McDonald.

"This is a critical step so that we can regain the trust of the voters."