Lenox Selectmen Review FY16 Budget & Town Warrant
 The Selectmen gave a final review of the budget and town meeting warrant. They are expected to vote on the warrant on Wednesday. |
LENOX, Mass. — The Selectmen reviewed the basically level-funded $27.7 million budget for fiscal 2016 and the town warrant on Friday.
Town Manager Christopher Ketchen suggested that there may be a 1.5 percent tax increase in fiscal 2016 and even a 2 percent increase by fiscal 2017, but that was a rough estimate and still a "conservative approach."
Thinking ahead to fiscal 2018, however, there is looking to be about a $350,000 deficit as the school project reimbursement bond comes off the books.
"[The spending] is always part of the problem," said Ketchen, though not all.
Lenox spending would stay at a normal rate, but revenue would decrease, leaving the town facing tax rate increases. Ketchen is "hopeful that that number never comes to fruition and the Selectmen will be looking for alternative ways to fill the hole. They said they are confident they will find ways to lift the burden from the taxpayer as they have in the past.
There was unanimous satisfaction with the proposed school budget, though the town manager and the School Committee are both hoping for additional grant funds for school buildings in the future to preserve capital assets. They believe they are "providing services that the residents want."
However, there is ongoing talk of "how to do things differently" in 2018 because of the financial challenges they will face at that point.
Selectman Edward Lane added that "there was nothing frivolous" in the school's proposed budget and that and all committee members seemed to be on the same page.
Ketchen pointed out a slight error in wording concerning the Insurance and Bonds line and the Legal Audit and Reserve line that would need to be re-voted on by the Finance Committee.
All five Selectmen were in agreement that it was a simple matter of rewriting, and no financial changes would be made to that section.
"Those numbers are now square," assured Ketchen.
Retirement funding in Lenox (under the legal heading) has systemically "been stacked heavily toward the older employees," but it remains a town liability rather than being shouldered by individual departments, and the line change would make that clearer, he said.
Ketchen informed the board that the legal budget had been boosted by $20,000, setting the total budget for the town's legal expenses at $50,000.
Article 3 on the town meeting warrant deals with snow and ice removal costs: the harsh winter has left the town with about a $95,000 loss. The board would like to start the fiscal year with a full salt shed, though the town manager and the Selectmen had differing ideas about how to raise the funds for that goal.
The snow and ice account is the only account that can be legally overdrawn; towns can draw from underspent accounts or free cash reserves or raise and appropriate to cover spending.
Ketchen suggested that the individual town departments comb through their budgets to find a combined $45,000 to contribute to the fund, while the balance would come from the town's reserve account. He was wary of relying solely on the reserved free cash in case there arose a need for those funds later on in the year.
However, said Selectman David Roche, "we've been pretty hard on the department heads to come up with bare-bones budgets" and he didn't think there would be much for them to pull from. He was concerned that it would force the departments to "fluff" their budgets in the future in anticipation of being asked for contributions, and suggested that all funds for the snow and ice deficit come from the town's reserve account.
Board members agreed that appropriations to departments were fair and did not allow for one department to be overfunded over another.
Lane urged his colleagues not to jeopardize their good standing relations with department heads by pressuring them for contributions.
Roche also suggested that the snow and ice funding come entirely from reserves, and that the town save in other ways in order to bulk that account back up over the course of the year.
"The law allows us to the send the taxpayers the bill," said Ketchen, which many towns have done in the past. But since there have been significant contributions to the free cash fund (it's at $3 million), there is no need for Lenox to go that route.
Article 4 was drafted to allow Lenox Public Schools and vocational education schools to present their budgets separately from the general budget.
In terms of enterprise fund articles, Ketchen said he based the retained earnings on FY14 actual numbers, "just to be extra safe [and] ultra conservative on revenue."
"Which is good," said Lane, "because revenues have been going down."
Article 9, on capital funding, is up $470,000 from FY15, appropriated toward the new fire truck this year.
The rest of the warrant was just, as Selectmen Ken Fowler put it, "housekeeping," and the board was satisfied with the final draft.
Before closing budget discussions, Roche praised Ketchen's improvements to the look and readability of the budget; Ketchen wants to keep fine-tuning the town's budget to make it even more intelligible for taxpayers.
The warrant, being reviewed by town counsel, will be voted on next Wednesday night.
Tags: fiscal 2016, town meeting warrant,
