Adams Selectmen Approve Budget for Fiscal 2019
ADAMS, Mass. — The Selectmen on Wednesday unanimously approved a $15,648,022 fiscal 2019 budget that is a .51 percent increase over this year.
The board ran through it one final time and made some final changes. The spending plan now goes to the Finance Committee, which meets on Tuesday night at 6 p.m.
"It is unanimous," Chairman John Duval said. "… and I want to thank everyone involved in creating this budget."
Over the past few weeks, the Selectmen met with department heads to review a budget that is essentially level funded and uses free cash to lower the tax rate.
Interim Town Administrator Donna Cesan made a small addition in asking the Selectmen use $15,000 to purchase a machine to maintain the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail, for which the town is now responsible.
The $15,000 will be taken from $250,000 allocated to make repairs to Hoosac Valley Elementary School. Cesan said this amount can be made up in the Hoosac Valley Elementary School repair line item if need be.
Wednesday's meeting was scheduled to tie up any final concerns and vote on the budget, so it can be reviewed by the Finance Committee, but before taking this vote the board reviewed the Adams-Cheshire Regional School District budget and the McCann Technical School budget.
ACRSD Superintendent Robert Putnam said the $19,750,146 budget is a 2.46 percent increase over fiscal 2018. He said it continues with the trends set this year and brings on a new STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) teacher and a full-time psychologist.
"I think that budgets happen in the context of a long-range plan ... and I think the work that has happened over the past year speaks volumes of how things are moving forward," Putnam said. "You asked where we were going and what our vision was .... and I think that vision is coming into clarity and I think it is getting sharper and sharper."
Adams' assessment, within the levy limit, will be $4,966,936, which is a .528 percent increase.
Selectwoman Christine Hoyt thanked the School Committee for its consideration and said the smaller increase allowed the town to allocate the $235,000 from free cash to make repairs to Hoosac Valley Elementary.
"I want to thank the School Committee and the administration for listening to the town of Adams," Hoyt said. "We did take you to task last year ... I appreciate all the work that was done."
Daniel Maloney Jr., Adams' representative on the McCann School Committee, presented the vocational school district's $9,340,159 budget that is virtually level funded with a .04 percent increase.
He said the budget was designed to provide some relief to the member towns while maintaining a high level of service.
"We do understand the financial realities our communities face and ... state funding is the problem everything goes up ... and it is very hard to build a budget without an increase there," he said. "They just keep pushing more and more on to the communities."
Adams' assessment will be $940,171 which is an $88,242 decrease from this year. He added these numbers are mostly driven by student enrollment and that Adams' assessment is based on 129 students.
The Selectmen had no major qualms with the school budget and they thanked the administration for keeping the communities' finances in mind.
"I just want to commend McCann. You guys do a good job and put out a good product," Selectman Joseph Nowak said.
The members of the board then had the opportunity to hold any line item within the budget for discussion, however, none of the selectmen raised any concerns.
The budget will be voted at the annual town meeting in June.
Tags: adams_budget, fiscal 2019,
