WHITMAN – In it’s last meeting of 2024 on Tuesday, Dec. 17 the Select Board heard a sobering assessment of what lies ahead for the town next year as officials calculate the fiscal 2026 budget.
Bottom-line, according to board member Shawn Kain, is that preliminary budget numbers indicate that an override is necessary to maintain level services. He had based his preliminary budget on 2.5-percent salary increases plus contractual step increases, final terms of union contract negotiations and the level-funding of expenses except for major known increases.
“We’re trying to get some things out there in the public view as early as we possibly could,” Chair Dr. Carl Kowalski said, noting that such an update was most likely what the Finance Committee wanted to do anyway.
“Our goal here is a level-service simulation – roughly a level- service simulation,” Kain said, noting that all five municipal union contracts are up for negotiation and the schools are negotiating their contracts. “You need to keep that present on your mind, but we’re looking for a simulation that’s roughly level-service.”
Total revenues are forecasted to be $45,784,975, with expenses calculated at $47,914,340, putting the current deficit at $1,729,385.
“[This is] basically announcing that, this year, we can’t avoid doing an override in order to pay for the services that we want to have,” Kowalski said.
“That’s right,” Kain said. “We thought it would be best to get these numbers out now, let people marinate and think about them, and then we can think about – over the next month or so – what the scope of the override would be … the details.”
Kowalski said he hoped the Finance Committee has seen and been discussing the numbers to help decide how much of an override will be needed. And it would need to include all departments.
“It’s the kind of advice I’ve been looking for from the Finance Committee for a long time,” he said. “[We] haven’t really received it. … It’s been pretty clear to us for a long time that, in order to have these things that we say that we value as a town … that we’ve needed an override for a while.”
He said there’s never been an inclination to pay for what the town says it values.
A joint meeting the Select Board had planned to have with the Finance Committee, didn’t happen because the Finance Committee, hadn’t officially posted it, with their agenda, Kowalski had said earlier in the meeting.
Vice Chair Dan Salvucci said departments need to understand that an override is not “an open wallet.”
Member Justin Evans said the town has already made all the cuts that can be made.
“I don’t know where else we can cut looking forward,” he said, echoing Kain’s assessment that they are down to the bone now.
Kain had noted noted that the budget process represents a community’s primary policy statement and establishes government priorities, beginning in the fall with a financial forecast.
“That is what this is tonight,” he said. A joint meeting with the Finance Committee and involving the schools will be held in order to coordinate concerning Whitman’s financial projections ans decide how to move forward on the same page.
The current levy is at $31,919,007. Adding $797,975 under the Proposition 2.5 and $200,000 in projected new growth brings that figure to an anticipated $32,916,982.
Kain said the new growth projection is low, as Whitman’s average is over $400,000.
“But the thing is, in a couple of those [previous] years the new growth was obvious,” he said. “We had a couple of projects that were over $600,000 and it made sense, but this year, we don’t have any new projects on the books, and based on the feedback we get from the assessor’s office, it really does make sense for that number to be as low as it is at $200,000.”
Adding excluded debt of $2,990,347 does just that – it goes to excluded debt and can’t be used for any part of the operating budget.
The maximum allowable levy for the town in $35,907,329.
Local receipts brought in $10,599,540 for a total revenue of $46,506,779. Subtracting charges and offsets of $721,804 brings the total available funds to $45,764,975
“We’ve been getting better and better at projecting our local receipts,” he said. “It’s guided by financial policy, and Mary Beth has been working closely with a really high-level financial consultant, which has allowed us to do be able to do this in a way that is reasonable, but also conservative.”
In January and February, as the first commitment comes out for excise tax, the town will have some more realistic evidence to know where those numbers are going to come in. The final calculation of $45,784,975 in available funds if $819,689 above where the town was last year in terms of new revenue that can be put toward the operating budget.
Carter has also put out a message to department heads to include a 2.5-percent increase for all non-unions employees without contracts; include that increase to employees who are contracted; and include step raises due for union employees; and all departments should be level-funding all of their expenses.
“That’s a hard ask, because every year, expenses go up,” Kain said.
All five contracts are under negotiation this year, as well.
Key budgetary lines will continue to be Plymouth County retirement, medical and health insurance, the W-H Regional School budget, level funding SST because enrollment is down, fire department retirements, solid waste disposal and free cash used last year.
“Plymouth County Retirement is killing us,” he said. “That’s up 11 percent this year. … That one line item is very difficult for us to account for in our budget.”