In March, the finance team presented a budget based on the Governor’s proposal for local state aid. Since that time, our world has changed dramatically. We have reviewed our revenue assumptions and had to make some changes based on the economic outlook for FY21. Most notably, the state has not given us any indication of what our revised state aid allocation will be. This is one of our largest sources of revenue. The Governor’s original FY21 state aid amount was almost $18 million; we will not know the final state aid numbers until at least August. The budget will need to be adjusted at the October Town Meeting to reflect the finalized state aid numbers.
Since we anticipate a substantial decline in our state aid revenue, we have decreased the operating budget by $1.5 million from what was originally proposed for FY21. The full budget proposal can be found here: FY21 Budget Proposal. Overall, the proposed budget is increasing $254,052 or .5% over the FY20 budget.