ASHLAND – The Finance Committee got its first look at the fiscal year 2019 budget last week.
Though department heads have been working on the budget for months, a Finance Committee appearance represents its first major debut.
The document will now go through several weeks of public discussion – and potentially changes – before residents give it a yea or nay vote at May Town Meeting.
A basic breakdown of the budget as it stands:
The bottom line
Town Manager Michael Herbert presented committee members with a $59,258,850 budget.
That’s a little under $2 million more than last year’s $57,307,018 number.
“I am historically very conservative with revenues. That has worked out in our favor,” Herbert told the committee last week, explaining why he is predicting higher available revenues this year. “We have seen some expansion, I think, in the economy, and I think it makes sense to look at maybe being a little bit more aggressive in our revenues.”
The biggest expense
Schools take up the majority of the overall town budget.
Depending on what the town’s finances allow, Herbert said, Ashland typically gives a 2.5 percent bump to non-school departments and a 3.75 percent bump to the schools. Any excess is split, with 70 percent headed to schools, and 30 percent to everything else.
For FY 2019, the preliminary school budget has come in at around $30 million.
What’s new?
“This year you’re not going to necessarily see a lot of new initiatives and a lot of new personnel, at least on the general government end,” Herbert said. “You’re going to see a lot in terms of programming and maintaining and making sure things are going to be there, not just a year from now, but five years from now, 10 years from now.”
The currently proposed budget will open the library for five additional hours on Mondays, opening at 10 a.m. instead of 3 p.m. That will cost about $12,500.
“When I came here in 2013, we actually were not meeting accreditation standards from the Massachusetts State Library Commissioners,” Herbert said.
The library has slowly built up to the required hours, Herbert said, and is able to offer more programs, partially funded through the town’s meals tax.
The budget also proposes adding a part-time recreation center staffer, and tacks hours onto a volunteer coordinator. That will cost $20,000 and $7,700, respectively.
Is the town looking at a tax increase, above the annual 2.5 percent?
Possibly.
There are two initiatives in town that could become debt exclusions, meaning Ashland will raise taxes above the annual 2.5 percent increase for a pre-determined period of time. Herbert has not included them in the budget number presented to the finance committee last week.
One is a $1 million feasibility study to replace the aging David Mindess Elementary School. This is an expense the town will have to fund in order to stay in a state program significantly reimbursing Ashland for building a new school.
The other is about $5 million for the next step toward a new public safety building. That would pay for the purchase of a property, and some design and engineering costs.
“This is going to be an expensive project,” Herbert said, of the public safety building’s eventual total cost, “probably between $25 (million) and $30 million total.”
What’s not funded?
Herbert told the committee Ashland could use about five more town hires, but he didn’t put them in the budget.
Those are a deputy fire chief, a town engineer, an additional staffer in the Town Clerk’s office, an assistant health director, and an additional police officer.
Where can you find the budget?
The currently proposed budget and several supporting documents are at https://www.ashlandmass.com/588/FY19-Budget-Information.
Finance committee meetings are posted to the town website at https://www.ashlandmass.com/.
Selectmen are expected to adopt a budget by March 8, it will be posted to the website by April 25, and residents will vote at Town Meeting May 2.
Alison Bosma can be reached at 508-626-3957 or abosma@wickedlocal.com. Find her on Twitter at @AlisonBosma.