Budget process launched

Andrew McKeever

GNAT-TV News Director

MANCHESTER — Town officials held an all-day review of the municipal budget they are preparing for the coming fiscal year, which voters will weigh in on during March Town Meeting. This year’s floor meeting is scheduled for Saturday, March 4.

The budget voters will be asked to approve during the floor meeting is not yet final, and may undergo a few adjustments by the Select Board between now and Jan. 26, 2017, when the budget needs to be finalized and set. But the broad outlines of what may be baked into the budget emerged during Friday’s meeting, held at the Park House at the Dana Thompson Rec Park.

According to the budget memorandum, the municipal budget would be financed by $2.758 million in non-property revenues, which include items such as fees and local option taxes, along with $2.935 million in property tax payments.

This assumes a 1.5 percent in the town’s Grand List, from the current level of $11,748,381 to $11,923,381, largely due to new commercial properties that would be added, resulting in a municipal tax rate of 0.2461 per $100 of assessed property value. This would be a nearly 3 percent increase from the current tax rate of 0.2391, based on a budget that excludes voter appropriations.

Highlights from the nearly $5.7 million proposed budget, which does not factor in separate special appropriations voted from the floor, and contained in a memorandum distributed at the meeting, includes using $160,000 from the town’s Capital Improvement Reserve Contingency Fund, or CIRC fund to purchase land adjoining the Rec Park and currently owned by the nearby Christ Our Savior Catholic Church.  Another $15,000 would be used from the CIRC fund for a backstop for the new softball field and fencing. These items, along with using $20,000 from the Taxpayer Reserve fund for operations and taking $75,000 from the Allocated Surplus Fund to resurface the municipal swimming pool, would be drawn from reserve funds and not directly from tax revenues or other income sources.

Other proposed capital items include $60,000 from the CIRC fund and state revenues to pay for the Depot Street redesign; $14,000 for new parking lot lights at the Town Hall parking lot (an earlier proposal to repave the Public Safety Facility parking lot has been shelved after the estimated cost was reckoned to be $70,000); $205,000 to replace a town dump truck also used for snowplowing, and $35,000 for  the second year of a lease/purchase agreement on a new truck loader, which is used in part to load trucks with salt and sand during winter storms, and $395,000 to pave Richville Road.

The meeting also reviewed all the various town departments, such as police, fire, sewer, water, planning and parks and recreation. Each department had their budget numbers reviewed and discussed.

Stephen Drunsic, a board director with the Manchester Community Library, along with Betsy Bleakie, the library’s executive director, also appeared before the Select Board and other town officials gathered to discuss the library’s proposed budget.

The library will be seeking a town appropriation of $221,900 for the coming fiscal year, which represents a $14,000, or 6.7 percent increase from the current year.

The library’s overall budget is projected to increase by 19 percent, to $635,525, from the current year’s total of $533,795. If approved,  the percentage of the municipal portion of the library’s financing will decline to about 35 percent, down from 50 percent four years ago. Private fundraising, fees and philanthropic donations make up the remainder and majority of the library’s operating revenue

The primary driver behind that increase is payroll, particularly for funding a staff development position aimed at boosting revenue from private philanthropy and other non-municipal sources, both Drunsic and Bleakie said. This position had been financed through a earlier donor gift but is now being phased into the library’s budget, they added.

Additionally, some previously part-time staff will be shifted to full-time due to a need to provide services desired by the community. This resulted in more employees now being eligible for and signing up for health and dental benefits.

The library’s budget, or its request for $221,900 is municipal funding, is not included in the overall town budget. It is voted on separately during town meeting

The select board will continue to review the numbers in the coming month before formally adopting one in January.