By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Northborough – Town Administrator John Coderre shared an update of the FY2021 budget with the Board of Selectmen at their Feb. 24 meeting. The budget will be reviewed as details continue to evolve prior to Town Meeting scheduled for Monday, April 27, at Algonquin Regional High School, 79 Bartlett St. at 7 p.m.
After reviewing the Financial Trends Monitoring System goals and objectives, he segued into budget assumptions for FY2021, primarily state aid, new growth and local receipts.
“Essentially when you first look at it, it looks like we’ve got a one and a half percent increase in state aid, but when you look at assessments, they give you aid but then they charge you back assessments for things like the MBTA site in Westborough, mosquito control, things of that nature,” he explained. “When you get the net impact, right now state aid is going to go up 0.89 percent.”
Coderre expects new growth (building permits and construction projects) will result in $776,000 in new FY2021 tax revenue. Northborough is currently experiencing another round of significant economic development which should yield strong new growth through FY2023. He referenced development along Bartlett Street.
Local receipts include building permits, excise taxes, meals and hotel taxes which are elastic and move with economic fluctuations. In FY2021 these will be level at $4.47 million.
“Those revenues are an area where we tend to be conservative because we are projecting them out 18 months in advance of the next fiscal year,” he noted.
“On the general government side, I need about a 3.5-percent increase in order to maintain services,” he shared. “We include health insurance for all school employees, liability insurance for all school employees and pension costs for all non-teaching school employees…these eat up about two-thirds of that 3.5 percent.”
Due to shifting enrollments at Algonquin Regional High School, the middle school and Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School, these assessments have had the biggest impact to the overall budget.
Coderre credited a very good working relationship with school Superintendent Gregory Martineau as they have moved through the budget process with a high level of collaboration.
Northborough’s K-8 budget increase for FY2021 has increased 3.15 percent which is an additional $785,859 resulting in $25,714,417. Likewise, the general government side’s 3.5 percent increase is $783,694 resulting in $23,174,967.
“By and large what you are going to see are sustaining budgets,” Coderre stated as he laid out the remaining budget calendar.
The tax impact is estimated at this point to be $320 to the average property owner.
“This is my second year going through this and I am interested in knowing how the Master Plan is going to be integrated into the capital improvement plan,” said Selectman Julianne Hirsch.
Coderre replied that the Master Plan needed to be approved by the Planning Board before any further action was taken.