HANSON – Interim Town Accountant Eric Kinsherf and Town Administrator Lisa Green presented “real preliminary budget numbers” to the Select Board on Tuesday, Jan. 24, while the board said “no thank you to sharing accountant services with Whitman,
“I think we have a good start for this time of the year,” Kinsherf said about the amount of information now available to the acountant’s office.
Green said all departments had submitted their budgets on time but “we don’t have numbers outside of Town Hall to work on,” as Gov. Maura Healey plans to unveil her state budget March 1 and the W-H School District is still dealing with preliminary numbers because of that, too
“We have put together, based on some revenues, a very preliminary initial budget kickoff,” Green said, handing off the presentation to Kinsherf, who termed it “a good footprint to work with,” but noted some information such as real estate taxes is easy to forecast.
Hanson can anticipate $883,000 – 3.4 percent of the levy – in new real estate taxes next year, he said. Of that, the new growth forecast is level with last year at $250,000.
Local receipts were also fairly level, according to Kinsherf.
Based on initial receipts from the new meals tax, he is estimating a $48,000 gain, for the town coffers.
State aid figures will not be available until March.
“The long and short of it, for new revenues, compared to last year, we’re looking at $945,000,” he said.
Budget requests have not been vetted yet, he said, but the biggest preliminary numbers are from the school budget, where a $1 million increase is being estimated.
Select Board Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett again asked if any information about local impact revenue from cannabis business Impressed LLC had yet been determined.
“It seems to be taking quite a long time,” she said. “It’s been more than a minute.”
Green said they would be seeing real estate and personal property taxes, but sales tax information would not be available until the business harvests its third crop, having grown two test crops so far.
“It seems we have not been having a robust and ongoing conversation with them,” said FitzGerald-Kemmett, in asking that the company be contacted for more information. “We’ve taken quite a leap of faith in entering into a community host agreement with them and we’ve seen – other than the real estate taxes and the real property, we have not seen the money that we were hoping to see.”
Select Board member Ann Rein advised Green to see if there have been any top-level changes at the company, and she said that she had heard a rumor that they were missing a certification, which was holding everything up.
FitzGerald-Kemmett said the community host agreement requires Impressed LLC to inform the town of such personnel changes, if any had been made, and no mention of test crops had been made, either.
Green said she would contact the company.
FitzGerald-Kemmett also said a lot of new growth given the green light by either the ZBA or zoning inspector had been delayed by materials shortages during the supply chain crisis, and related cost increases, have lately shown signs of activity only to halt.
The board also discussed Whitman interim Town Administrator Frank Lynam’s suggestion that the two towns share an accountant.
“Financially, it looks like it’s a good idea,” Green said. “But after speaking to Eric about it, and looking at how sharing somebody has either benefited us or not … in the past, it may not be the best road to go down, but I’m going to leave that to the board to discuss.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett said she agreed with that reasoning, as well as the prospect of sharing an accountant with a town with which Hanson is in a regional schools agreement – “which, at times, has had some contention and difficult moments” – might not be the best fit.
“I appreciate them reaching out and, for certain services, I certainly would entertain shared services, town accountant is just way too close to home for me,” she said.
Despite the standards of practice and ethics in the accountant profession, FitzGerald-Kemmett said she felt the optics are “not great.”
The board was unanimous in agreement.
“I think we’ve decided we’re looking for someone full-time here,” Weeks said. “It’s a good Plan B if we ever needed it.”
“[We] would like to thank our brethren in Whitman for thinking of us and for reaching out and … no thank you,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said, noting that former accountant Todd Hassett had urged the town to hire a full-time, in-house accountant. She also note that, no matter how well-intentioned such a partnership is, it is difficult to get an even 50/50 split of services.