The Finance Committee (FinCom) voted down (by a 6-3 vote) the revision to the budget that the Town Council requested of the Town Administrator. The primary sentiment as expressed by members of FinCom was disappointment in the Town Council's use of the stabilization fund.
The Town Administrator by direction of the Town Council had worked to (1) increase the revenue projections by approx $300K (2) reduce the town side of the operating budget an additional $500K to provide $800K to the schools. The $800K plus the use of $1M in stabilization added to the FinCom approved increase of $200K would fund the schools at $2M over the 2006 budget. This $2M would cover the state mandated (but not state funded) special education costs.
This would be the base budget. Then if the override passed, the $2.7M override would be allocated $2M to the schools, and $700K to restore some of the last cuts in the town budget. Of course, if the override fails, the cuts really hurt all departments.
The Town Administrator selected to take almost half of the $500K (see #2 above) from the Library. This would reduce the operation from 6 days to 4. It would also reduce the overall library funding such that the state grant would be withdrawn. The withdrawal of the state grant would also kick in the elimination of a Franklin resident to use the library to borrow a book through the intra-library loan system, even if they physically went to the other town library to find the book.
The motion the FinCom voted on was to accept the Town Administrator's budget adjustments with one shift; instead of reducing the Library by about $260K, the schools would get $260 less.
This motion failed by the mentioned 6-3 vote.
What does this mean to the budget?
What does this mean for the override?
Go to the Information Session at Horace Mann Tuesday night May 1, 7:00 PM or tune into the local cable channel as the session will be broadcast live.
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