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“This is serious. We need to make up this money … and these are the numbers,” Warrant Committee member Ewan Innes said.
At the meeting, the Warrant Committee proposed to Selectmen and the School Committee a new plan for spending free cash to cover the deficit.
The plan, which would be brought before
Special Town Meeting, proposes taking $285,000 from free cash and $200,000 from the Reserve
Fund to cover the snow-and-ice budget. But Hurley said using the free cash would probably require a separate article at a future Town Meeting. He said he is in discussions with Town Counsel John Flynn to determine if the free cash could be used by amending the recommendation on the article in the current Town Warrant.
The warrant for Special Town Meeting already has gone to press.
Still, Hurley said the deficit would still be too
large to cover this year and around $175,000 would have to be rolled over into next year’s budget under the plan.
“We probably don’t have enough available right now to cover the snow-and-ice budget,” Hurley said. “I have had talks with [Town Accountant] David Grab about this … about looking to see if local receipts next year will somehow be able to absorb that deficit.”
He said the deficit will have to be absorbed somehow in order to balance the budget.
State Aid and Department Budgets
Meanwhile, the Warrant Committee’s new plan also has departments cutting less than was originally planned from their current budgets. Hurley said that’s because the state-aid cut Gov. Deval Patrick announced last week was less severe to Milton than anticipated. The town will only lose $390,000 in state aid, far less than the nearly $1 million officials had anticipated. “It’s certainly a lot better than we have expected,” Hurley said.
Under the Warrant Committee’s new plan, the schools would cut $75,000, the police $25,000, public works $20,000 and fire $10,000. In addition, the remaining free-cash balance – $200,000 – and $60,000 from the Reserve Fund also would go toward covering the state-aid loss.
But Selectmen Chair Kathy Fagan said departments should hold off on agreeing to the new cuts until they can reassess how it will impact their current services.
And Town Administrator Kevin Mearn argued the new plan calls for the police and public works to take higher percentage cuts than the other departments. He said the original plan, based on an expected $1 million state-aid cut, was for the departments to all take similar percentage cuts.