Tewksbury Town Meeting Preview: $121 Million Budget

TEWKSBURY, MA — Tewksbury's annual town meeting is Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the Tewksbury Memorial High School Gymnasium. Among the items on the warrant: the Fiscal Year 2021 budget.

Town Manager Richard Montuori has proposed a $121.6 million general fund budget, a 3.1 percent increase over Fiscal Year 2020. That budget was proposed before the coronavirus outbreak hit, with serious effects on state and local budgets across the country.

On May 1, Montouri put in place a spending freeze in response to likely revenue losses due to the new coronavirus, particularly to hotel and meal taxes.

But he asked to pass the budget as planned; instead, he hopes town meeting will pass it as presented, and then town officials can ask for changes once they have more information

The largest portion of the budget increase came from $1.26 million in debt service for a new facility for the Department of Public Works and the school maintenance department. Other increases came from general operating expenses, retirement, and insurance. Salaries declined, due to police dispatchers' salaries being taken off the police budget. Debt exclusions will begin to decline in Fiscal Year 2021, for both school and town debt.

The school budget would increase by 2.5 percent, to $61.2 million.

The largest source of revenues is the tax levy, which is projected to increase 2.6 percent, to $96.98 million. State aid and local receipts make up most of the remainder. State aid remains up in the air, with the state budget also affected by the coronavirus.

Town officials want to "only make changes once," Montuori said in May, rather than making cuts now and then coming back and asking for additional changes at a special town meeting. The town did hold off on most of the capital projects it planned to bring to town meeting, Montuori said.

The water, sewer, stormwater and cable TV enterprise funds are worth another $15.5 million.

The full warrant is available here.

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