Dalton Prepares for Challenging Budget Season
DALTON, Mass. — As the town embarks on a challenging budget season, the new town manager has already put forth cost mitigation options.
It has been demonstrated by both the Finance Committee and Town Manager Eric Anderson that this budget season will be full of obstacles and tough decisions.
During the Select Board meeting on Monday night, Anderson explained that the town is going to be very close to its levy limit with the increases in the school district budget, health-care costs, and cost-of-living increase for employees.
Health insurance costs are projected to increase roughly 16 to 18 percent for next year, which will be a "big hit" to the town, he said.
The town currently pays about $1.2 million total for employee health insurance. Employees are responsible for around 27 percent of the health-care costs, Anderson said.
The board approved setting the cost of living adjustment for town employees to 3 percent for fiscal year 2027.
The board felt that the 2 percent COLA combined with the 1.75 percent step or grade increase was in line with the consumer price index of about 2.7 percent.
"I think the budget is going to be a challenging one this year. I don't want to put undue strain on it, but I also realize the challenges that our employees certainly face with cost of living and inflation," Esko said.
Additionally, the board approved setting the Step 1 Grade A to match the state minimum wage of $15 an hour. Prior to the vote, it was $14.91 but the town does not have any staff at this level.
To align with the state, the board felt it necessary to make this change.
The board also approved changes to the fee structure for the building department and Zoning Board of Appeals permit applications, as recommended by Anderson, in an effort to make the department self-sustaining and recoup staff time and administrative costs.
"As part of my review of the budget, I look at two aspects — one is what our actual expenses are, and the second thing is what revenue sources we have," he said.
The building department has been running at a deficit of about $10,000 after all the fees have been taken in for the year to offset the department's budget.
The minimum building permit fee was changed from $50 to $60 and the evaluation of work costs were increased from $5 per $1,000 to $6 per $1,000.
The town has not been taking in any portion of the plumbing, gas, and electrical permits because applicants use the online permit program that the building department budget pays for.
The fees taken from fees taken from those permits are given to the inspectors as they are paid as subcontractors.
There will be an additional $10 charge per permit, which will go back to the town to cover the cost of the permit program.
The Zoning Board of Appeals permit fee structure was changed to accurately reflect the costs of processing each applicant and to generate revenue for the town.
Rather than sending abutter notification via certified mail, the town will now be sending it through certified mailing list, with prepaid postage, which is substantially cheaper, Anderson said.
The way certified mailing list works is the post office certifies the list of addresses the mail is being sent to, he said.
"The post office is acknowledging that everything on your list was sent, which is essentially what you're trying to do … I think actually, we'll get them in the hands of more people," Anderson said.
The problem with certified mail is a lot of people refuse to accept it, believing it contains bad news, he said.
"So, what happens is, usually three weeks after we do a mailing, we get 15 or 20 percent of the letters we spend out paying $10 bucks a piece to get returned to us as undeliverable," Anderson said.
"So essentially, we would be increasing the application fees on our labor, but then doing something that decreases the mailing costs for these so it's not going to cost the applicant that much more, but we as a town, net more money," he said.
The fee structure for the zoning board of appeal were also changed as follows:
- Board of Assessors Certified Abutters List: from $25 to $35.
- Berkshire Eagle Legal Posting (2 required): from a total of $264.80 to $323.16
- Certified Abutters Letters: from $8.69 each to $10.44 each
- Minimum Legally Required Notifications to Applicant and Abutting Towns (8 required): from a total of $69.52 to $83.52
These changes equate the total cost of a Zoning Board of Appeals permit to $441.85 plus $10.44 per the number of abutter letters.
Anderson is also discussing with the Board of Health increasing some of the boards fees to recapture costs and also to potentially encourage businesses to renew their permits on time.
"We're spending a lot of time chasing them down," Anderson said.
The town's health agent, through Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, demonstrated how other towns have fees for late renewals.
"The Board of Health has the ability to do it. So, I would suggest we do that. We're not talking about large fines," he said.
The town could charge about $25 to recoup its labor for the time it takes to chase the businesses down.
Tags: Dalton_budget, fiscal 2027,
