This is your official reminder to mark your calendar and get your babysitters lined up for Southborough’s annual town meeting. It will start on Monday, April 12 at 7:00 pm at the Trottier Auditorium. If it goes to a second night (seems likely), that will be on Tuesday, April 13.
You must be a registered voter to attend town meeting. If you’re not already, you’ll need to get that taken care of at the Town Clerk’s office in the the Town House no later than March 23.
Notes from the Advisory Meeting of 2/1/08:
The Advisory Committee has been meeting weekly since mid December doing prep work for the budget season. All budgets in town are required to be recommended and submitted to Advisory by 1/30.
Current State of the Budgets
Missing Budgets – K-8 Schools, Algonquin
Several Warrant Articles (capital projects and special expenses) are also undefined including K-8 technology and several others
Based on a K-8 budget with a 3.6% increase and a 0% increase for Algonquin, if the budget as requested was approved taxes would have to increase about $2.1 million dollars. This is a 7% increase in property taxes. About $1.2 million of this increase can be accommodated within the Prop 2.5 cap meaning that it can be approved by majority vote of Town Meeting. The remaining $900k would require a Prop 2.5 override which requires an additional approval at the polls.
It is not unusual at this stage of the budget process for things to be “out of balance” this is the first time that all the requests come together in an integrated budget. However, the extent of the budget shortfall is exceptionally large this year. This problem has been exacerbated by a shortfall in revenue sharing from the Commonwealth.
For the next several weeks Advisory will be focusing on the “Big 5” operating budgets (in size order K-8, Algonquin, DPW, Fire, Police) these 5 budgets make up the vast majority of operational spending. In addition review of warrant articles will start.
The next Advisory meeting will be held on Monday Feb 8 at 7:30, check the town web page for the location, it typically meets in Cordaville Hall. Public participation is very welcome.