This winter, the Town’s Finance team and the Board of Selectmen have been hashing out the Fiscal Year 2021 budget to bring to Annual Town Meeting voters. One option recently floated was tabling some capital spending to a Special Town Meeting in the fall. In the meantime, a committee would better research the Town’s anticipated capital expenses* and how to handle them.
As of this week, selectmen and Finance were still unable to come to an agreement on a budget framework for FY21. Unhappy with long term forecasts, selectmen did approve a policy for the FY22 budget. The board voted not to add any new employee positions or hours in FY22 unless new revenue sources are found to offset the cost.
But that budget is more than a year out. For the FY21 budget, the board is still uncertain about how many positions, hours and benefits to add at department head requests. There were also questions about how to handle capital expenses in the pipeline. Selectmen (and likely the Advisory Committee) plan to tackle big budget decisions at a dedicated meeting on February 4th.
I know, it’s pretty standard to see the Town Finance team and selectmen worrying about the budget this time of year. In fact, the projected increase at this time last year was much higher (an alarming 6%). But by the time the budget got to Town Meeting, the projected tax rate increase** was cut down to 2.67%, a figure that the Advisory Chair referred to as cost of living.
Still, selectmen are now faced with a situation the Finance team warned them about last year – that tough times were ahead, especially starting in FY22. Recent debates have focused less on the impact to this year’s projected tax rate and more on the long term impacts.
Earlier this month, selectmen were dismayed by 5 year budget projections that showed the Town would begin to exceed its “levy capacity” in FY22.***
Vice Chair Marty Healey asked Finance to come back with a version that shows what they would need to do to avoid going into the red around the corner. This week, Treasurer Brian Ballantine presented a new version that did that. The new vision lowered the tax rate increase from 4.46% to about 3.61%. (Some uncertainty still remains about this year’s state aid, state charges, the Southborough assessed share of the school budget, etc.) But it required making cuts that selectmen aren’t entirely on board with yet. [click to keep reading…]
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