The Meeting Warrant is up on Bridgewater’s web site for the October 9th Special Town Meeting. Some people have expressed some confusion, and having read the wording, I can see why. This post will try to explain the Warrant to the best of our ability.
The first thing to note is the reasons for the meeting. We need to balance our budget which is currently in a $1.5 million deficit due to the previous decision to send that amount to the B-R Regional School District. The second reason is to fund the Town’s Health Insurance line item, which was intentionally underfunded when the budget was first passed back on May 7th.
Article 1 of the warrant is the major article. It seeks to do 2 major things in order to close the budget gap of $1.5 million caused by the transfer of money to the B-R Regional School District. The first part of the article applies about $800,000 of newly identified available revenue towards the current fiscal year’s budget. This revenue is from land sales, ambulance receipts, a $50,000 gift from Bridgewater State College and other such items. The second part of Article 1 transfers funds from departments in order to close the remaining $700,000 gap. This is the part that cuts certain departments and even adds funding to a few others. There are no impact statements yet one the Town website; however, it has been expressed by the Board of Selectman and in newspapers that these cuts and transfers will minimally impact Public Safety.
Other departments will be impacted more (Library, Council on Aging, Recreation, etc.); however, it’s unclear by how much. The library has been rumored to close completely, but it’s also been said that it could stay open for limited hours. The Council on Aging was to have closed completely; however, private donations have now funded it. The Recreation department is still slated to reduce staff and/or raise fees.
Article 2 simply transfers the free cash from the previous year into the Health/Life Insurance account to satisfy a known deficit that was in place when the current budget was passed at Annual Town Meeting in the Spring. It’s obviously bad budgetary practice to knowingly underfund a line item, and then count on the money to come from free cash or any other funding source. The Town has done it for years, and it should stop.
Overall, this Warrant is difficult to support or vote against. Every budget passed by the Town seems to rely on gimmicks and one-time funds, and this budget is a prime example of that. The problem with using one-time funds to the extent seen in this Article is that is sets us up for another override vote in the near future. If we solve things this year by selling land and spending down other one-time revenue sources, then we’re in for a bigger deficit next year.
That being said, the Article does limit the impact of cuts to Public Safety departments, which is a very good thing. We legally cannot recover the money that we’ve already given to the School District so this Warrant is the best our Town can do at the present time. The next budget year we are hopeful that the Town can take some long-term steps to solve Bridgewater’s fiscal issues. It is far past time for us to reduce our health insurance costs and to limit our raises to an amount that is sustainable by our current tax base.