Town officials making progress on balancing budget
By Angela Greiner Contributing Writer

Hudson - Over the past month, town officials have been dealing with a proposed fiscal year (FY) 2009 budget that had an initial $2.6 million deficit. After the School Committee voted Jan. 8 to cut its proposed 2009 budget by $1.1 million, the deficit was down to $1.4 million.

Executive Assistant Paul Blazer had previously recommended that the town's general operating budget increase by no more than 3.5 percent over FY 2009 and that the school budget increase by no more than 4.5 percent.

"It [The budget total] is moving in the right direction," Blazer said after the school budget was decreased.

At this point, the general operating budget for the non-school portion of the FY 2009 budget still exceeds its target number by $975,567, and the school budget is over by $496,205.

Blazer, who does not expect it to be easy, is hopeful that the general government side of the budget will be balanced before Town Meeting Monday May 5.

With a history of proposed school budgets being high over the past 20 years, Blazer is less confident that the town will be able to successfully reduce the school budget. The trimmed-down school budget does not include any of the increases in teaching positions proposed in the initial budget.

The budget gap this year is a result of several different factors aff ecting the town's income, including the expiration of state water recourse reimbursement, a 33 percent drop in Farley School reimbursement from the state, a drop in new growth in real estate and, most significantly, the drop in state aid awarded to the town.

According to Blazer, the existing deficit was foreshadowed in FY 2003 when the state drastically reduced state aid to cities and towns across the commonwealth. Over the past five years, in order to maintain town operating expenses, support ongoing projects and keep to the requirements of Proposition 2-1/2, the town has spent its capital reserve.

The amount of revenue that Hudson received as state aid in FY 2008 finally reached the level of funding that was allocated by the state to the town back in 2003. Blazer explained the impact in the loss of state funding in a letter to the selectmen.

"Since FY03 the aggregate loss in state aid is still approximately $1 million versus level state aid from that date," the letter reads. "If one assumes a modest increase of only 3 percent [increase in budget] annually, the shortfall increases to nearly $7 million over the same period of time."

With a potential Proposition 2-1/2 override vote looming, local departments have worked to create budgets with minimal increases, but according to Blazer, there have been unavoidable increases, like benefit costs increasing 85 percent since FY 2003, largely because of increasing health insurance costs and pension costs.

The Election and Town Meeting budget, which is based on the number of scheduled meetings and elections in the coming year, is another example of an unavoidable budget increase; the FY 2008 budget has $34,000, compared to $49,000 in the FY 2009 budget.

"People [in the town departments] need more money … I don't think that they are overspending," Blazer said.

With spending projects like the expansion of the Senior Center and the renovation or new construction of JFK Middle School on the horizon, Director of Community Development Michele Ciccolo is hopeful that these projects will go forward. Ciccolo, who has applied for several grants for the expansion of the Senior Center, believes the timing is right for a new center.

"We do not have time to defer … If we do defer, we lose the opportunity to bring in outside state money," she said.

With a total projected spending of $4.4 million, the Senior Center project could be paid for by a debt exclusion tax that would add $60 annually to the average real estate tax, which Senior Center Director Janice Long called a "worst-case scenario." Long and Ciccolo believe that state grants and fund-raising will contribute a significant percentage of the project cost.