By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – At the Board of Selectmen’s Jan 28 meeting, Town Manager Kevin Mizikar walked the selectmen through a series of slides in his second budget workshop for FY2021. This presentation was focused on the Department of Public Works (DPW).
“As I’ve discussed with the board, we are certainly challenged in this year’s budget development process and we continue to put together a budget that’s within our means,” he remarked.
He added that one of the challenges every year is a reduction in local receipts. However, this past year they have been able to recover some of these reductions with an increase in building permits, associated fees and strong financial markets.
He then shared that across the board within the DPW, FY2021 shows a 10.31-percent increase of $2,004,347 over FY2020. There are a variety of revenue sources such as user fees and rate charges pertaining to water, sewer, stormwater and solid waste. Although with Parks & Recreation and Cemeteries, he noted that fees are supplemented through the tax levy.
The budget includes provisions for some additional positions to meet the demands Public Buildings and Highways department heads envision, and also includes funds allocated for May and June of 2021 when the new Beal Elementary School is turned over from the general contractor to the town.
One of the biggest changes in the budget includes stormwater and how the town conducts its fall street sweeping. They had gone out to bid for it last fall but no one bid on the project. Given the uncertainties, the project was conducted with in-house staff and Mizikar proposes to do so likewise in the next fiscal year.
Solid Waste revenue is projected to be $1,211,798 which reflects the new PAY-T bag fees. Total operations are projected at $2,358,503 and the tax levy will absorb the $1,208,957 shortfall.
Relative to Water & Sewer, Mizikar shared the need to go after additional funding for an enhanced maintenance program because the department has not been keeping up with the demands of maintaining the system.
“The water rates are performing as anticipated through the 2018 rate-setting process and operations continue to fall in line from estimates from that same timeframe,” he said.
Capital expenditures include debt servicing of the water treatment plant and plans for continued water main work.
Finally, he noted, the stormwater rates are keeping pace with expenditures.