Category Archives: Budgets

The Pioneer Institute has published and distributed to us a Guide to Sound Fiscal Management for Municipalities, on how to operate a town in Massachusetts.  Always good to get help in doing the things that we do to run Medfield.

This guide comes with a downloadable Excel worksheet that allow one to compare us to 14 other towns, which then compares Medfield’s metrics to those of the other 14 towns.  The spreadsheet actually suggested most of the towns to use for the comparison, based on the major similarities.   Interesting to use to compare Medfield to other towns.

BTW, it says we are now down from 1st to 3rd in the state on the percentage of our population in school.  24% of Medfield attends school, versus 15.1% statewide and 19.4% of the 14 towns I selected for comparison.

Medfield’s debt, debt service,  debt and debt service as a % of budget, debt as a % of EQV, and debt at a % of budget were all a lot higher than both the towns the program selected and the ones I added.

In broad general terms, based on the towns in my comparisons, our school and DPW costs were generally higher, while our police and fire costs were generally lower than in the comparison towns.

I highly recommend this tool for anyone who wants to know how what we are doing in Medfield compares to other towns.  It gives you the figures and graphs them out for easy comparisons.

The Massachusetts Municipal Association issued this alert today –

In a significant victory for cities and towns, the final energy bill developed by a joint House-Senate conference committee, preserves the ability of communities to collect property taxes on solar and renewable energy facilities.

The MMA and local officials across the state have been communicating with legislators all year, expressing grave concerns about provisions in earlier versions of the bill passed by the House and Senate that would have exempted certain renewable energy facilities, including commercial solar facilities, from the property tax.  Instead, communities would have been allowed to collect a much lower PILOT equal to 5 percent of electricity sales. In essence, the previous versions of the legislation would have provided developers with a windfall, and reduced important revenues that communities collect and use to pay for critical local services.

The members of the conference committee (Reps. Keenan, Hogan and Beaton, and Sens. Downing, Brewer and Hedlund) heard the message loud and clear, and removed the tax provisions from the final bill.

The Legislature is expected to enact the compromise energy bill as soon as today, and send it to the Governor.

Please call your legislators today and thank them for protecting local decision-making and taxing authority.

On another important municipal issue, the Governor last week signed the “terms bill” for the $200 million fiscal 2013 Chapter 90 local road fund distribution that was authorized by separate legislation signed in June.  With both bills now law, cities and towns can begin signing contracts for local Chapter 90 projects based on the provisional apportionment letters sent by MassDOT to cities and towns on April 1.

I got notice this afternoon from DOR that the final Cherry Sheets have been issued, these after the Governor’s line item vetos, and so the FY13 state budget is final now.  The bottom line for Medfield  are the same as came out of the legislature’s budget, and we are about $210K better off than last year.

DOR reports that its Division of Local Services has posted updated local aid estimates based on the legislature’s Conference Committee’s budget recommendations.  These are the cherry sheet numbers for Medfield, $7,051,687.   We gained about $210,000 over last year, $197,000 over the Governor’s budget this year, but for some reason lost a buck from the House’s budget numbers.  A lot of that gain may have been the extra $40/pupil that was put into local aid this year.

This email came yesterday from Dan Winslow’s office –

======================

Michael –

Medfield can expect to receive $401,430.00 in c. 90 funding for the 2013 fiscal year.  This is a decrease of $1,034.00 from the 2012 apportionment of               $402,464.00.

Please be in touch with any questions.

Best,

Nina

Nina S. Hong

Legislative Aide and Counsel

Office of State Rep. Dan Winslow

State House, Room 33

Boston, MA 02133-1054

Tel: 617-722-2060

Fax: 617-626-0602

The Massachusetts Municipal Association issued the following statement on the budget released by the legislature today –

Key Local Aid Programs $144M Higher than Budget Filed by Gov. in January

“Municipal leaders across the state applaud the leaders and members of the House and Senate for writing an outstanding state budget for cities and towns, and are deeply grateful to Speaker Robert DeLeo, President Therese Murray, Chairman Brian Dempsey, Chairman Stephen Brewer and the members of budget conference committee, Vice Chairman Stephen Kulik, Vice Chairman Jennifer Flanagan, Rep. Vinny deMacedo, and Sen. Michael Knapik.  Communities are struggling mightily to fund essential services, and the state budget before the Legislature today embraces a lasting fiscal partnership to strengthen municipal finances and provide funds for public safety, education and other vital local programs.

“By passing this budget, every legislator is demonstrating their commitment to local aid, and their determination to invest in cities and towns as an essential step in the state’s economic recovery.  The Legislature’s budget will increase fiscal 2013 municipal and education aid by approximately $144 million above the budget submitted by the Governor in January, and $289 million above  current fiscal 2012 levels, an outstanding achievement that will benefit every community in Massachusetts.”
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According to the MMA’s initial analysis of the budget, the key proposals in the Legislature’s fiscal 2013 state budget include the following:
• Guaranteed funding for unrestricted municipal aid of $899 million, by adding $65 million to the base Cherry Sheet distribution, instead of relying on a tentative supplemental distribution later in the year.
• Adding $34.7 million to Chapter 70 school aid above the Governor’s recommendation to ensure that every city, town and school district receives an increase of at least $40 per student above current education aid levels, and to renew the target aid distribution to scores of school districts that was suspended in 2008.
• Fully funding Special Education reimbursements by increasing funding by $29 million, a major step that would benefit every community and school district in the Commonwealth.
• Providing $11.3 million for the transportation of homeless students under the McKinney-Vento Act, adding a new line item to reimburse cities and towns for the cost of this new mandate.
• Increasing funding for regional school transportation reimbursements by $2 million, bringing funding up to $45.5 million.
• In addition to standard local aid accounts, the Legislature’s budget would provide up to $25 million in funding for the Community Preservation Act in fiscal 2014 by creating a mechanism to allocate a portion of any state budget surplus remaining at the end of fiscal 2013.

Mike Sullivan distributed to the Board of Selectmen Tuesday evening the attached speadsheet he had prepared about the taxes over time, FY05 to Fy13.  Taxes increased 20.6% over that time, or an average of 2.6% per year.