Review the Stoughton Board of Selectmen's FY14 Budget Proposal

The Stoughton Board of Selectmen recently approved its version of the FY14 budget.

The balanced budget proposal is for a little more than $76 million ($76,006,112), an increase of 4.86% from the town's roughly $72.5 million ($72,484,453.21) operating budget for this fiscal year, FY13.

The proposed FY14 budget was approved by a 4-1 vote, with Selectman Cynthia Walsh the lone opposing vote.

The proposed $76 million budget figure is actually about $1.5 million less than what town departments had initially requested. There are a limited number of new positions proposed on the town side in what is essentially a "level service" budget:

• Information Technology (IT) specialist
• Assistant Sanitarian for the Board of Health
• Code Enforcement Officer for the Building Department

The budget also puts aside 3% to spend on Town Meeting articles, to keep borrowing costs down, and puts aside 1.5% for future building projects. Both are slight decreases to the amount selectmen had intended to designate for articles and building projects, but Town Manager Michael Hartman said there were "soap and water issues" that needed to be addressed now and had to lower those figures in order to meet other needs.

The Stoughton School Committee passed a proposed FY14 budget just north of $39.5 million ($39,539,512), an increase of $1.8 million ($1,837,738) or 4.87% from FY13. Selectmen passed a budget that increases funding for the Stoughton Public Schools by $1.6 million ($1,619,435), $218,303 less than what the schools had requested.

In a brief budget memo, Hartman wrote that the "budget is balanced, the school district  would receive more than 90% of their requested increase and the Town would have enhanced capability in the areas of code enforcement, health regulation enforcement and IT."

This is very early in the budget process, and this budget still needs to go before the Finance Committee and ultimately the Annual Town Meeting, and amounts can change as updated revenue projections and updated local aid projections come in.

Take a closer look at the budget document in the media gallery of this article or by clicking on the link below:

FY14 Budget.pdf