W&S budget discipline

The Water & Sewer Board has crafted an incredibly detailed Budget Planning and Rate Setting Process document (copy attached).  The selectmen met with W&S last night to assist them in getting their process back on track.  The selectmen also last night charged the W&S Board with both

1. the financial oversight of the W&S departments, and
2. making the policy decisions for W&S, just as the selectmen do for the town as a whole.

This is the chart from the Water & Sewer Board’s Budget Planning and Rate Setting Process document that shows the separate steps required to ultimately get to both a budget and rates.

It would be an admirable town goal to have such a well documented and detailed planning process for all town budgets.

The W&S Board also has created an even more sophisticated and incredibly detailed model that they now use for planning purposes, in which all possible W&S variables can be entered and manipulated in order to plan for the future of its budgets and rates, assuming a multitude of various scenarios.  They call it the Tool, and it is now in its third year of being used.

It would be an admirable town goal to have such a detailed planning Tool for all town budgets.