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Date: 6/13/2023
GRANBY — The town of Granby wrapped up the remainder of its Town Meeting articles through the continuation of its Town Meeting on June 5.
Before the actual Town Meeting was completed, a Special Town Meeting was opened to take five articles related to fiscal year 2023 that needed to be resolved. All items were passed.
The first article passed of the night will transfer $15,000 from the Gasoline Department Expense budget for the purpose of funding the Legal Department Expense budget for FY23. Town Administrator Chris Martin explained legal needed the extra cash in order to make it through the year as the town has had “a couple” lawsuits instituted at the state level against the town requiring special counsel.
Martin noted the town would be utilizing labor counsel going forward in union negotiations as to be proactive on changing labor laws at the national level.
Article 2 was passed unanimously as Town Meeting members voted to transfer $12,000 from the Gasoline Department Expense budget and $13,000 from the Public Buildings Department Personal Services budget, for a total of $25,000 for the purpose of funding the Public Buildings Department Expense and Capital budgets FY23.
Building Department Maintenance Supervisor Jeremy Carrier spoke first and explained this money was due to an overage within the department as well as vehicle maintenance and other unexpected expenditures. One resident asked town officials why part of this funding was coming from the gas expense budget for the second straight item, to which Martin explained their projects on the price of gas were fortunately off leading to available money.
“The gasoline budget is used for all the fuel used by municipal vehicles whether its gas or diesel. When we put the budget together, we were at the point where gas prices were increasing dramatically,” Martin said. “We projected them to be around $5 a gallon, however we lucked out and it only averaged around $4 a gallon so with that savings we can take that money and help offset some of these other over expenditures.”
Another item of note from the special town meeting portion was the transfer of $95,000 from the gas expense budget, the Snow and Ice Department personal services budget as well as their regular budget, and funding from the workers compensation expense fund to address the needs of the department. Fire Chief Michael O’Neill said the increase comes from a variety of factors including the union’s raise, call volume increases, members on leave of absence, and an injured worker.
O’Neill also said gear and equipment has seen a rise in costs, so this was factoring that in as well. Town Meeting members voted to approve the request but before the vote the Finance Committee felt, based on the funding the department received last year, they were supposed to conduct a study on what their needs will be in staffing in order to assist in the budgeting process.
What was summed up to lack of communication between parties did not ultimately matter for the vote, the Finance Committee did subtract $83,000 and moved it to the reserve fund to be allocated following a conducted survey. O’Neill noted he is in his first year as chief and came into the job not being involved with last year’s budgeting.
The other two articles passed through the special Town Meeting was the transfer of $20,000 from the Retirement Department Expense budget to fund the Health Insurance Department Expense budget for the remainder of fiscal year 2023, while the other passed article transfer’s $1,000 from the gas department expense budget to fund the Dog Revolving Fund expense budget for the remainder of fiscal 2023.
Police Chief Kevin O’Grady explained the Dog Revolving Fund was funding for the department’s animal control officer for the year. The just had their animal control officer leave so they had to train and inoculate a new one, thus requiring the extra funding.
For the completion of the regular Town Meeting itself, the following allocations were approved through all majority or unanimous votes:
$1,700,950 for a new school transportation contract.
$539,346 to operate the municipal solid waste department.
$251,321 to fund the sewer department.
$421,782 to operate the ambulance department.
The town and school budgets for FY24 total $24.3 million, an almost 6% decrease compared to FY23’s budget, according to the Finance Committee’s report. The decrease is mainly due to a $2 million reduction in capital requests for the schools.
At last year’s Town Meeting, voters approved two warrant articles for renovation to the Junior-Senior High School building. Officials learned that only one part of the renovations could be done due to state laws requriing the whole building to be brought up to code for accessibility.
“Eight straight years of experience is hard to ignore,’ was the last sentence of the Finance Committee’s report to town alst year. The experience was spending much more money than available,” Finance Committee member John Libera said, “Granby can’t ignore the town’s fundamental fiscal problem. What happens if the school building falls apart?”
Libera’s cautioned message is a second year of attempting to garner attention around the town’s spending habits of the last decade and that brainstorming should be ongoing to avoid any future financial issues.
To review this year’s continuation of Town Meeting go to the Granby Community Access & Media YouTube page. To review this year’s Town Meeting Warrant, go to granby-ma.gov.