DALTON, Mass. — The Select Board began its review of the fiscal 2024 budget during its meeting on Monday night, going over about a handful of department spending plans. 

 

The assessors' budget is projected to increase by 8.58 percent, bringing the amount from $111,958 to $121,564. 

 

The town recently hired Lee Nunez as an assessor clerk, who has been "extremely enthusiastic and capable," Town Manager Tom Hutcheson said. 

 

The Board of Assessors is recommending he be promoted to part time benefited position. 

 

When previous full-time Assessor Laura Maffuccio retired, the Assessors went from having 70 hours of manpower a week to 35. In addition to that, it lost a clerk in September and Principal Assessor Jean Boudreau cut her hours back from 15 to 11 hours a week.

 

Although this addition does not bring the office back up to where it was previously, it does help, Hutcheson said. 

 

Boudreau said the board would like Nunez to work 16 hours as clerk and four hours as the third assessor. During his assessor's training, Maffuccio has come back to work four hours a week.

 

"We've got a young gentleman who's very enthusiastic, wants to learn all that he can about being an assessor, but he came into the office knowing nothing about the assessors," she said.

 

"So right now most of our time is spent training him. So I've put an additional seven hours a week in the budget to cover the cost of having whichever assessors have to work over and get the job done."

 

The department does not intend on using all seven hours a week budgeted -- the expectation is three or four -- so there maybe a surplus at the end of the year. The amount was budgeted this way to ensure the account didn't go over. 

 

Patriot Properties is doing all of the department's field work including personal property, real estate, building permits, business accounts, and state-mandated cyclical inspections.

 

The town clerk's budget is projected to increase by $1,816, bringing its total from $111,825 to $113,641. 

 

The expenses will remain at $11,950 but the salaries are projected to increase from $99,875 to $101,691. 

 

One concern raised was the absence of a cost-of-living adjustment. Town Clerk Heather Hunt said she will look into that. 

 

The elections budget is projected to have a 23.22 percent decrease bringing its budget from $24,010 to $18,434, as there are no state or federal elections this year.

 

The 2 percent COLA is included in the budget and stands out because it is not included in the new wage matrix.

 

Those affected by this include election workers, wardens,assistant wardens, tabulator checkers, and tellers at the annual town meeting and special town meetings.

 

"So none of these folks are listed on the wage matrix. The only estimate that I have is the police officers rate," Hunt said. 

 

"And that's because my budget had come before you and I needed a good estimate. So it might be a little high I think, but it should pretty much be a good ballpark."

 

One concern raised is that a 2 percent COLA was included in a line item for Equipment Set-up. The Select Board Chair Joe Diver recommended listing that item as an expense. 

 

The Board of Registrars budget is projected to have a slight increase from $14,157 to $14,351. The expenses will remain at $4,100 but the salaries are projected to increase from $10,057 to $10,251.

 

The Information Technology Services budget is projected to remain at $68,000. 

 

Of that budget, $40,000 will go to computer maintenance, including for the Town Hall, Police, and Highway departments. The town has approximately 25 computers to maintain. 

 

The amount also budgets for $10,000 to cover hardware purchases and an additional $10,000 for server backups, updates, and off-site backups. The remaining $8,000 covers software purchases. 

 

Board members wondered whether $8,000 is too steep for software. 

 

The town will have to lease new software from Microsoft because the current ones will expire in the next year or two, said Patrick Pettit, the building and grounds superintendent.

 

One software that was not included in the budget is the town's $2,300 anti-virus program that got set up late in the year. 

 

"Software is extremely expensive and goes up every year. Right now if one computer went down, the software for that is somewhere between $700 and $800 just for one," Pettit said. 

 

The town does not have the option to transfer software from one computer to another because it is licensed per machine.