In their annual budget memo, the Select Board and Finance Committee have asked town departments, boards, and committees to limit increases to their expense budgets in fiscal 2024 to 2.5% of last year’s number. Cost-of-living increases to the wages of town employees are exempted, as are previously signed contractual agreements, but surging prices and demand for workers could drive costs beyond those limits.
Two weeks ago, for example, the Personnel Board recommended an 8.2% cost-of-living increase for Harvard’s nonunion municipal employees, dramatically higher than the 3% increase in the town’s fiscal 2024 payroll that was forecast last spring. And the long-term contract recently signed with Harvard’s recycling hauler will jump 5% next fiscal year, twice the rate sought by the town.
The most recent forecast for fiscal 2024 anticipates a deficit of $224,153 using assumptions adopted prior to the 2022 Annual Town Meeting, but with the 12-month Consumer Price Index hovering at 8.2%, inflation could make the job of delivering a balanced budget that meets the town’s needs more difficult.
The expense guidelines are among the goals set in this year’s budget memo, which was approved by the Finance Committee earlier this month, distributed to department heads and committee chairs on Oct. 19, and reviewed by the Select Board Tuesday night.
As in past years, the memo asks each department and committee head to submit a detailed budget narrative along with a spreadsheet detailing expenses and payroll. This year, however, the committee also provided guidelines for what to include in the narrative, a writing task that has confounded or been ignored by some in past budget cycles.
Narrative rules
This year’s memo asks submitters to do the following:
- Explain the goals and objectives of their budget, how they compare to and how they address the overall goals of the fiscal 2024 budget, as presented elsewhere in the memo.
- Explain what decisions have been made with regard to the services the department or committee will provide. Additionally, provide a prioritized list of their top additional spending opportunities with an explanation of the value that would be created for the town.
- Explore any changes to service delivery that will realize savings. Can departmental costs be combined with other departments or communities to improve services or reduce costs? Are there new sources of revenue or grant funding that could reduce the net cost of operations?
- Provide a detailed report of all nontax revenues anticipated or received in fiscal 2023 and anticipated in fiscal 2024. Include the dollar amounts received and how the money was used or intended to be used.
About those “overall goals of the fiscal 2024 budget” referenced by the first bullet in this list, what are they? Unlike the Capital Planning and Investment Committee, FinCom does not use a formal rating sheet to evaluate budget requests. But the Select Board and FinCom do say that submitters should be guided by the following goals:
- Ensure alignment with the Harvard Charter, the Master Plan, and the goals outlined by the Select Board.
- Enable the town and its boards to best serve the community and maintain natural and physical resources through strategic use of available funds.
- Provide operating funds that support a long-term view of capital investment and economic development.
- Provide support for open space needs, recreation, conservation, opportunity for housing diversity, and economic development.
- Provide a budget that is supportive of the town’s climate resiliency goals.
“These goals are intended to serve the town’s short- and long-term goals,” the memo states. “As such, the complete Omnibus Budget and each budget submission will be evaluated in the context of these goals.”
Readers might wonder where to find the Select Board’s goals, called out by the first bullet of the preceding list, but omitted from the memo. They can be found at www.harvard-ma.gov/select-board/files/fy23-select-board-goals.
Paperless, or else
Finance Director Jared Mullane, working with Executive Assistant Julie Doucet, has created budget forms that can be completed and submitted electronically. Paper copies will not be accepted, the memo warns. Submissions that do not adhere to the proper form or format will not be reviewed by the Finance Committee or Select Board.
If September’s all-boards meeting was the opening ceremony of this year’s budget cycle, distribution of the budget memo Oct. 19 was the kickoff. Departments and committees have until Dec. 1 to complete their work and submit their budget documents to Finance Director Mullane by 4 p.m. Once Mullane distributes budgets to Select Board and Finance Committee members the following week, the yearly task of constructing a balanced budget begins.
