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ADVISORY COMMITTEE’S STATEMENT
The Town’s fiscal 2008 budget is the product of a great deal of work by many people. These included the Department Heads who developed the original projections and the Town Administrator and Town Accountant, who refined and pruned these projections into a coherent whole. The volunteer Boards and Committees who oversee many of the Town’s operations also made important contributions to the budgeting process. The Advisory Committee reviewed all of this material and made modifications which it believed would benefit the Town. Finally, the Selectmen provided a last review and established the final budget figures which are being presented to the Annual Town Meeting. The Town is fortunate to have an unusually capable group of professional public servants and a large number of Committee volunteers who spend
many evenings overseeing the Town’s governmental activities.
Property taxes are expected to rise by +5.4% in fiscal 2008. The sources of this increase are the basic +2.5% allowed by Proposition 2½, +2.1% from additional value added to the tax base (often referred to as “new growth”) and +0.8% from debt service payments that have been excluded by the Town’s voters from Proposition 2½ limits. If the Town approves a 3% Community Preservation Act (CPA) surtax with a $100,000 per house exclusion at the May 14 election, taxes will rise +7.8%. We expect a State match of 100% on Town CPA contributions in fiscal 2009 and possibly fiscal 2010. After that, the State matching percentage is likely to decline.
Education is the Town’s largest area of spending, exceeding $10 million this coming year, or 60.4% of the entire budget. The percentage would be higher if debt service payments were allocated back to the spending sectors rather than being grouped together. The overall Nashoba Regional School System budget is up +5.9%. We think this is reasonable given enrollment gains and cost-of-living increases. We commend the Schools’ administration and the School Committee for crafting a budget that ensures high quality education and is, at the same time, fiscally responsible. Because of a State formula, Bolton’s share of the Nashoba budget is up +5.6%, a little less than the overall rise for the System. Due to a decline in the number of Bolton students attending Minuteman vocational high school,
the Town’s entire spending on education will be up only +4.5% from last year.
Public Safety (primarily Police, Fire, Dispatch and Ambulance) is the Town’s next largest area of expenditure at $1.5 million, or 9.0% of the overall budget. Expenses in this area are projected to be up +9.4%. This higher-than-average rise is due to a contract that brought compensation levels for the Dispatch/Communications employees closer to those of surrounding communities, adjustments for the new four-days-on-two-days-off staffing policy of the Police, a need for part-time backup for the full-time EMT/Firefighter and a more realistic assessment of Police overtime requirements. We are hopeful that next year’s rise in public safety spending will be more moderate.
Public Works at $1.4 million, or 7.9% of the budget, is the third largest area of Town expenditure. Expenses in this sector are anticipated to rise by +5.8% in fiscal 2008, of which +3.5% will fund a significant increase in the rate at which the Town’s roads are repaved. This increase was encouraged by our new Capital Planning Committee. Otherwise, public works spending is up only +2.3%. This moderate gain is due in large measure to a recent careful review of DPW spending by Department Head Harold Brown, Selectman Curt Plante and Town Administrator Jodi Ross.
General Government expenditures are targeted at $1.2 million, or 7.1% of the total. These are set to rise +2.7%, primarily for cost-of-living increases, plus a moderate increase in resources devoted to the Town Treasurer function.
In other areas of interest, the Town’s health insurance bill is expected to rise by +21.3% to $289,000. While this expense is only 1.7% of the budget, its rapid increase over the past several years is a source of concern. More favorably, the Town’s contribution to the Worcester Regional Retirement System, at $203,000, is up only +0.4% next year, after a few years of very sharp advances.
Debt service is projected at $1.7 million, or 10.2% of the overall budget. It is planned to be up +12.8% this year, due primarily to the financing of our new wastewater treatment plant at the Sawyer/Emerson schools’ complex. Debt service is likely to continue to rise because we will need to finance the Town’s share of our new Library in future years.
The overall Town budget is $17.1 million. This is a +6.0% increase from last year. Given an environment of approximately 2 1/2% inflation, we think this is reasonable. Most economists anticipate that the current dollar Gross Domestic Product will advance by between +5.0% and +5.5% over the 12-month period that coincides with our fiscal 2008. In other words, our Town budget is projected to grow only a little faster than the surrounding economy that supports it.
In addition to the basic budget, the Town Meeting warrant contains seven articles that, if passed, will involve spending from the Town’s “free cash” reserves. The Advisory Committee recommends that three of these items--$50,000 for a new DPW truck, $32,723 for a new sidewalk and $72,706 for public safety software--be amortized over a three-year period through use of a borrowing. If this is done, the seven articles will cause $77,153 of our “free cash” to be used, and an estimated $604,000 of this reserve will remain to help with our budgets in future years.
David Lindsay |
Burt Shnitzler |
Richard Fly |
Stanley Wysocki |
Andrew Burnett |
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