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Date: 11/30/2022
MONSON – Looking back on fiscal year 2022 (FY22) budgets in Monson, Jamie Farnum, finance director, provided some closing comments during a tri-board meeting on Nov. 16.
The tri-board meeting consisted of the Monson Select Board, School Committee and Finance Committee.
Farnum explained that the end of the fiscal year budget closed on June 30. Then, the process began for reconciling all the funds, general funds, accounts and so on.
“At the end of the [fiscal] year, we closed back $450,000 [that] went back to the general fund from expenditures,” said Farnum. “Revenue stayed stable. We had some unpaid prior year bills.”
Once everything is reconciled and they close the books, free cash is then submitted for certification. Farnum noted that the free cash has been certified at $1.5 million this year – a decrease from the $2.2 million last year.
“Our stabilization fund is strong. Last year we had about 4 percent of our budget. Stabilization was $1.1 million and we’re at almost $1.4 million for stabilization, so that’s great,” said Farnum.
She shared that they used some of their free cash last year to put into the stabilization fund to use for one time or unplanned expenditures in the future.
“Once free cash is certified, that becomes part of our tax rate recap. Then, our values are set through the assessor’s office,” said Farnum.
She went on to say that the tax rate is looking to be about $15.90 per $1,000 valuation which is down from $17.83. “It seems like a big jump there but because values are high, so then in turn the tax rate went lower,” she explained.
Farnum touched upon debt exclusions as well. She noted that the Quarry Hill Community School roof project was added because they finished the bond for that. Once the project was completed in the spring, that came on in the beginning of FY23. “That payment was actually a lot lower than anticipated,” said Farnum. “It worked out where the high school debt rolled off in FY22,” and the Quarry Hill project came on, she added. Farnum said they authorized $5 million for the project, and it came in around $2.7 million. She shared that they got reimbursed 59 percent through the Massachusetts School Building Authority and ended up only borrowing $1.2 million.
In FY24, Farnum said they have the middle school debt rolling off. Moving forward, she said they can start having conversations on what other capital projects or buildings to bring on, to go in line with the capital improvement plan.