Clarity and control were of main interest to the Marion Financial Committee at its February 5 meeting at Town Hall.
As the committee anticipates a school budget for Fiscal Year 2021, it desires the ability to present financial data in an easy-to-digest format that reveals trends and facilitates foresight and prudent planning.
After the Finance Committee had sought to contract an outside consultant, Town Administrator Jay McGrail and Assistant Town Administrator Judy Mooney assured gathered members that the Old Rochester Regional school district will expand information so that the committee can identify trends.
“The school committee, they give you one year and it doesn’t help you know what’s going on,” said committee member Charlie Larkin.
“We want to get it for five years,” said Finance Committee Chairman Peter Winters.
“Right now, it’s year to year… and we get a big hit,” said Selectman John Waterman, who attended the meeting. “We get a bigger share than our prorated (number of) students… If we can go to a three or five-year rolling assessment, it won’t be as volatile.”
Work on a budget presentation started in October with a January 31 goal, according to McGrail, who was happy to send it on time.
What he was not happy to announce was a modest result in Chapter 70 money, which takes into account Governor Baker’s “New Student Opportunity Act” that focuses in part on helping towns with charter-school assessments.
“It’s supposed to be rolled out over five years… I don’t know if it will ever help us… because we don’t have a lot of that,” said McGrail. Even Sandwich, Mooney said, saw negligible gains in the first year.
McGrail’s overview of the budget for FY2021 was followed by Mooney’s report of revenue expenses.
At the outset of their presentation, Winters said the bulk of the Finance Committee’s questions will come when it meets with department heads later this month.
After Christmas, McGrail and Mooney met with department heads and requested “level-service budgets” with additional spending categorized separately.
“What you see here today is significantly different than what was originally asked for,” said McGrail. “There were a lot of individual requests made by department heads didn’t make it. They weren’t thrilled about that, but we started with about a $300,000 to $400,000 deficit and had to move backward to get to something that was presentable (to the Finance Committee).”
Overall growth for the Town of Marion in FY2021 is 3.15 percent.
“I know we talked about looking for 2 (percent), but I to make everybody understand that 3.15 is a pretty good number for the Town of Marion. It’s the lowest overall growth number that the town’s seen in the past five years and down 2.44 percent from FY20,” said McGrail, acknowledging the $420,000 operational override for FY2020. Even so, he said, when that money is taken out it was close to 4 percent. FY2021 revenue estimates were established from historical data over the past five years.
“One of the reasons Judy’s been successful with our AAA bond rating, which is something this community should be really proud of… it’s because we’re conservative with our revenue. We don’t overestimate,” said McGrail.
He and Mooney met with the Board of Assessors and looked at a five-year average, then sought to lower the town’s support on the free-cash budget.
Significant expenses included a Collin Center study on Marion’s salary and wage classification. “We’re not going to rip up their contracts while they’re on them. We’re going to wait until they expire,” said McGrail.
Marion’s era of free, solid-waste disposal ends on December 31, 2020. The new cost of a five-year deal with the Southeastern Massachusetts Resource Recovery Facility (SEMASS) is $75 per ton with a 2 percent escalator over the five years.
Sippican, ORR and Upper Cape Tech estimates are still subject to the approval of school committees in March.
Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) will present a capital plan to the Board of Selectmen on February 18, after which McGrail and Mooney will draft a plan that McGrail says will be presented to the Finance Committee and the select board by the end of February.
“We have more requests for funding than we have funding (at $2.3 million) so not everything in here will be a submitted,” said McGrail.
Two joint meetings involving the Finance Committee and the Board of Selectmen have been set, one scheduled for February 12 at which the Police and Fire departments and the Department of Public Works will present their budgets. On February 26, ORR and Sippican and the Finance Director and the Public Library will meet.
“We’ve done our best to push back on everything,” said McGrail, crediting the Library for its compromises.
McGrail reported two requests for staff.
The Fire Department had a resignation and hired a paramedic. Now it requests a firefighter. The Library had a part-time circulation job that it requests to make full time.
McGrail and Waterman lauded the success of the fire of Megan Davis, a staff engineer dealing with sewer, water and general Department of Public Works who was brought on board in December.
“She should more than pay for herself over the next six years,” said Waterman. “Every one of these projects until now we’ve been having the fox watch the hen house. Now we have someone in here.”
“Megan did save us money in the first week… one contract,” said McGrail.
Mooney reported on the “2020 Recap” of revenues, noting that the Proposition 2 1/2 override of $420,000 from 2019 is built into the $19,362,000 levy limit.
Marion’s projected FY2021 budget shows $165,000 in new growth based on a five-year average. State aid is estimated to be level in contrast to what the Governor said last year.
The town is trying to reduce $1,925,922 in free cash left over from the FY2019 closeout, which is only up .77 from FY2018. Expense control accounts for 90 percent of that amount, according to Mooney. “We probably turn back close to ($400,000),” she said.
“The department heads know that this helps us. We use the free cash to pay for the capital next year. They know that, if they turn money back, if they don’t spend it all, it helps us with the projects they want to do, which is great,” said McGrail.
Marion does not rely heavily on state aid, according to Mooney.
McGrail wants to grow levy capacity to avoid raising taxes.
“If we don’t spend it, that’s good. To avoid an override in the future, I think we should (put free cash in capital stabilization),” said Winters.
The town clerk’s budget request increased in FY2021 to service the needs of three elections in addition to her and her assistant’s certification.
The law firm of Huggins and Witten had charged Marion a flat rate, but since selling its business to the larger Kopelman and Paige Law (KP Law), Marion is being billed by the minute. KP charges anywhere from $100 to $300 per hour, resulting in monthly bills anywhere between $6,000 and $20,000.
McGrail said that, since Marion has no human-resources staff, every personnel matter has required legal counsel.
“As long as (Jonathan Witten) is there, I wouldn’t make a change,” said Waterman, who still thinks Marion is getting a bargain compared to the private sector. “The list of stuff he does for the town and the range is incredible. In the private sector, you could spend $200,000 in the blink of an eye.”
“If you’re paying $125/hour, you’re never going to beat that,” said Larkin. “My bet is it’s really good value.”
According to Mooney, just under $100,000 is allocated to water and sewer.
The town also wants to address the need for a part-time, information-technology (IT) staffer. Marion has leaned heavily on Police Chief John Garcia for support.
According to Waterman, Mattapoisett is paying 100 percent for the ORR resource officer and wants Marion to reimburse for its portion of the position. Marion cannot legally reimburse, according to Mooney; the item has to be submitted through the ORR budget.
McGrail indicated that Fire, Police, Schools, Library, and DPW were all scheduled to address the Finance Committee in joint sessions this month and take questions.
The next meeting of the Marion Finance Committee is scheduled for February 26 in conjunction with Old Rochester Regional and Sippican schools and Marion Public Library.
Marion Financial Committee
By Mick Colageo