Dalton Begins Discussions on $10M Town BudgetBy Sabrina Damms, iBerkshires Staff
05:28PM / Wednesday, January 31, 2024 | |
DALTON, Mass. — The Select Board last week voted to freeze its stipend as it took up an estimated $22 million budget for fiscal 2025.
The town's operating budget was proposed at $10,075,035, up 10 percent over this year, and the board chipped away at some minor line items.
One of the main drivers of this "high budget" has been insurance increases, Town Manager Thomas Hutcheson said.
The town was originally anticipating health insurance to increase 14 percent or $868,000.
However, after attending the Massachusetts Municipal Association's annual conference, Hutcheson believes the actual cost for health insurance will be closer to $837,000, only a 10 percent increase.
"The excess levy capacity would then drop $136,781 as opposed to $167,000. This would still be a 5.9 percent increase in the operating budget, well over the 10-year average of about 3.17 percent," he said.
The single family residential rise taxes would rise 4.7 percent, an average annual increase of $252.
"Please note that the property valuation is conservatively estimated as the same as this year. If property values rise 1 percent the average tax bill would rise $185 or 3.5 percent," Hutcheson said.
"And if there were a 2 percent rise in property values the average tax go would rise $131 or 2.4 percent. I say this in part to help us all get a better handle on the scale of the problem which I see as relatively small."
There are still a lot of unknowns surrounding the current budget including the final numbers for insurance and the schools, Hutcheson said.
"[The preliminary budget] has some conservative estimates built into it, these include worst case Insurance numbers, no increase in property value, and a 3 percent rise in school spending," Hutcheson said.
The preliminary figures are based on preliminary budgets submitted by all departments.
"The draft budget does leave us another $167,610 short of an even excess levy capacity. It would obviously be best if we could have that be level or even have some more excess levy capacity," Hutcheson said.
The town should try and trim the budget down by $136,781 but at this early stage in the budgeting process it has been a challenge to find easy sources to do so, he said.
The sewer expenses are expected to rise by approximately $117,000 but this is offset by sewer fee revenues.
Total insurance expenses are expected to rise about 12.4 percent, or $210,000. This is not offset.
Hutcheson estimated the school assessment at $10,644,136, plugging the increase at 3 percent, or $310,000. More information on the school preliminary budget here.
The library budget is projected to have a slight decrease in its budget because the new executive director is not being paid as much as the old director. The board will choose whether to approve the budget during a future meeting.
The board voted to decrease the Legal Counsel budget to $55,000 from the previous amount of $60,000 because the town has not spent that much historically.
"A couple thousand it wouldn't necessarily be an issue from what I can tell in the trend in the history, that being said you know you can never predict the future," Vice Chair Dan Esko said.
The board also approved decreasing the reserve fund transfer budget from $65,000 to $60,000.
About $1.6 million in warrant articles is proposed mostly from free cash and stabilization accounts for capital projects.
The board approved a list of small and "noncontroversial" line items, with the Select Board and Cultural Activities budgets taking up a majority of the discussion. All of the stipends in the budget lines discussed will see a 2 percent increase in their stipends; others are level funded or seeing a slight increase in expenses.
The board approved a budget of $27,571 for itself after making a number of amendments to decrease it.
The original proposal was $30,800, a 3.30 percent decrease over this year, however, the board members voted to decrease it more by eliminating the projected 2 percent raise in their stipends.
This passed unanimously with member John Boyle not in attendance.
Hutcheson also provided the Select Board a line item of "Other Purchase" services for "otherwise unbudgeted Select Board requests" for surveys, events or for unexpected items such as the recent Bardin property appraisal.
That line item was originally budgeted for $5,000 but the members voted to decrease it to $3,000 since they didn't see themselves spending that much, especially since the Bardin property appraisal was a one time expense.
Hutcheson cautioned them not to decrease that too much because if something unexpected happens it would have to come out of another line.
"That's one of the reasons that I provided the Select Board with a line where they could do something like that so that it would not have to be taken from some other budget unexpectedly," he said.
The board voted to decrease the Cultural Activities budget request of $11,500 to $7,000.
Prior to this change, the budget was slated to increase 364 percent because of the Cultural Council's proposal to fold the Dalton Day activities into the operating budget.
Although board members agreed Dalton Day was a great event, they wanted to see how much the council can receive in sponsorships.
The Dalton Day event used $7,300 in American Rescue Plan Act funds.
The town moderator budget is increasing 2.05 percent, bringing its total to $548 and the Registrar of Voters by 1.95 percent, bringing it to $14,551. Both the animal inspector and forest warden lines are also are increasing by their 2 percent stipend bringing them to $1,761 from $1,726 and $6,350 from $6,300, respectively.
There are some departments that requested increases for expenses. The Conservation Commission is requested an additional $520 to attend professional and technical training at conferences. This would increase the budget to $2,695. The Central Supply budget will increase by 3.69 percent, or $720, bringing it to $20,220, to account for printer toner costs.
Budgets that will decrease included the recording secretary budget by $412, or 4.16 percent bringing it to $9,495 and the town report budget of 12 percent, or $950, bringing it to $6,965.
Level-funded budgets include the Finance Committee at $1,685, group purchasing at $4,300, town audit at $3,500, tax title foreclosure at $2,500, town advertising at $10,500, sealer of weights and measures budget for $800.
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