Coronavirus: Tewksbury Spending Freeze, But FY21 Budget Proceeds

TEWKSBURY, MA — Tewksbury Town Manager Richard Montuori has put in place a spending freeze, as of Friday, May 1, he said at the Board of Selectmen meeting Tuesday. The freeze will be in place for the rest of the fiscal year and for the beginning of Fiscal Year 2021, which begins July 1.

The freeze was put in place in response to likely revenue losses due to the new coronavirus, particularly to hotel and meal taxes.

Montuori is not planning to make changes to the Fiscal Year 2021 budget, however. Instead, he hopes town meeting will pass it as presented, and then town officials can ask for changes once they have more information.

Towns and cities across Massachusetts are waiting for information from the state on the status of their state aid for next year. Montuori said there could be cuts as big as 10 to 20 percent, but it remains unknown.

Montuori also wanted to know more about local receipt revenues, including meal and hotel taxes, before they make major adjustments to the budget. The town will not know how much it made in meal and hotel taxes for the current quarter for another month, he said.

Town officials want to "only make changes once," Montuori said, rather than making cuts now and then coming back and asking for additional changes at a special town meeting.

The town is holding off on most of the capital projects it planned to bring to town meeting, Montuori said.

Town officials expect to meet revenue projections for the current fiscal year, and to generate some free cash.

"I don't think we should be throwing numbers out there because they change every week," Montuori said.

The full meeting is available here from Tewksbury TV.

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Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.