State holds the cards for municipal and school budgets
Published on January 2nd, 2002
STONEHAM, MA - As the holiday season concludes town officials are hitting their number crunching stride because the fiscal 2003 town budget must go before Selectmen in mid-February.
Town Administrator David Berry said all municipal department budgets were delivered to him by Friday, Dec. 28. Berry plans to meet with Superintendent of Schools Joseph Connelly, Town Accountant Ron Florino and Finance Board Chairman Richard Gregorio on Jan. 7 to look at both the municipal and school figures.
Connelly plans to present the fiscal 2003 school budget to the School Committee next week before visiting Selectmen with an update on Jan. 8.
Berry said he did not want to make any projections until the preliminary cherry sheet — the state aid projection — arrives in late January. And Connelly said he’d prefer to present his numbers to the School Committee before making a public statement. But Gregorio offered an “educated guess” that the municipal side of the town budget would increase by two to two and a half percent for salaries but remain level funded for operations. Gregorio added that the school budget would probably increase five percent, primarily due to salaries.
Since fiscal 1995 personnel has accounted for around 55 percent of the town budget, operating for around 30 percent, government charges for just over 10 percent, debt service for under five percent and capital for less than one percent. The fiscal 2002 town budget was $47.4 million; $20 million of that was for the schools.
State aid and health insurance costs are the two variables threatening the bottom line.
“The real question is how much will the state take out of its stabilization fund,” Gregorio said. The state took out $500 million to put towards the $1.2 billion fiscal 2002 deficit.
“Will they do the same in 2003, be more cautious, or more liberal?” Gregorio asked.
Nobody knows. Berry cannot yet say what his first budget will look like, but he knows what he doesn’t want to see.
“We want to avoid any personnel cuts,” Berry said. “I hope not even to consider that.”
School building debt
The School Department wants a written OK from the state Department of Revenue (DOR) to add $6,042,000 to the Proposition 2 1/2 debt exclusion for the Stoneham elementary school building project.
The request is an estimate of remaining costs made by the project architects, Flansburgh Associates of Boston. Two of the four schools are open. The remaining schools have been designed, and construction bids will be final by February.
The state originally approved a $39.5 million debt exclusion from Proposition 2 1/2 voted in by Stoneham’s 1997 Annual Town Meeting and the subsequent, required townwide ballot vote.
By 2001 the project had run overbudget due to rising construction costs, but the scope had not changed, so DOR accepted and OKed a request from Stoneham to add $5 million to the exclusion. But Stoneham had spoken too fast; drainage problems pushed the cost even higher.
Connelly expects a letter from DOR by today and anticipates a favorable ruling. He will meet with the School Building Committee and School Committee tonight, 7:30 p.m., at the new Central School to decide when to call for a Special Town Meeting and how much to request.
“We may ask for a higher amount (more than $6,042,000) and then see what the bids come in for,” Connelly said. “We want to ask the town for that exact amount.”
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