ADAMS, Mass. — The Selectmen last week voted to recommend a $17.7 million spending plan and a $550,000 capital plan for fiscal 2024.

 

The Finance Committee was scheduled to vote on Thursday evening. The annual town meeting is June 7.

 

The total budget to be presented to town meeting members is $17,683,484, up $696,511, or 4 percent over this year. 

 

It includes assessments to the Hoosac Valley Regional School District of 5,843,904 and the Northern Berkshire Vocational School District of $978,048, and an operating budget of $10,810,723.

 

The capital budget will be financed through free cash and another $150,000 in free cash will be used to offset the tax rate. 

 

Finance Director Crystal Wojcik estimated that the tax bill for an average single-family home would increase about $200, from $3,608 to $3,822.

 

The Selectmen and Finance Committee had reviewed the details of the spending plan over four meetings last month. 

 

The recommendation came after 90 minutes of discussion at the tail end of a 3 1/2 hour meeting on Wednesday. The board had started at 6, an hour earlier than usual to accommodate the lengthy agenda. 

 

Capital requests were explained during the department budget reviews but were voted on as a separate list on Wednesday. 

 

Town Administrator Jay Green said the town had about $1.4 million in free cash certified with the intention to use $700,000 toward capital items and tax reductions and the balance to roll into the towns unregulated funds reserve account. 

 

Items include an updated assessment of the town's streets and software to manage street paving schedules; a Chevrolet Tahoe for the Police Department; a $180,000 brush truck for the Forest Wardens to replace aged and obsolete vehicles; a new one-ton Ford with plow and a used Volvo front-end loader for the Department of Public Works; a host of smaller equipment for cemetery, parks, facilities and public works; building repairs and demolitions; and $160,000 for a town administrator's capital account to be available for overages on projects. 

 

"We have a few needs at the wastewater treatment plant we're unsure if they will be covered through the project, plus the [Greylock] Glen and other facilities," said Town Administrator Jay Green. "Every time we go to address something in these buildings we don't have enough to cover it."

 

Selectman Howard Rosenberg commented that using a department "wish list" was not best practice for capital planning. He advocated for a capital management program similar to what he had seen being used by the Water Department (a separate division from the town).

 

"We don't have such a powerful tool ... I say we need that capital management plan to prioritize where to spend our capital," he said. "Most of this [capital plan] is asset replacement ... we should know in advance what those are."

 

Green said the water superintendent only had to deal with water and how to distribute it using an enterprise fund while the town's needs were much more complex and its revenues changed from year to year.

 

Finance Committee Chair Carol Cushenette, who attended the meeting, agreed with Rosenberg, saying, "we do need a plan that strategically helps us plan things ... this doesn't give us a long-term plan."

 

Select Vice Chair Christine Hoyt pointed to the software management systems being purchased, the fleet schedules being developed and the creation of a facilities manager post last year as progress toward long-term planning. 

 

"The information is there but it's coming together," she said. "I think the staff at Town Hall are putting those things in place and I'm actually encouraged by what i'm seeing on this list."

 

But Rosenberg deferred, saying the process would save money in the end. "How we pay for it determines the capital plan and it should be the other way around," he said.

 

The board also spent some time speaking with Hoosac Valley Superintendent Aaron Dean about the increase Hoyt had noticed when the budget was reviewed. The board's initial draft had shown a 0.9 percent increase but the budget came in at 3.66 percent. 

 

Dean and Green said there was a miscommunication over the initial draft and Dean defended the decision to add in positions including a curriculum director as meeting the educational needs of the students and as a way to increase enrollment.

 

"We've been trying to get all of the key positions into our main budget for a number of years," the superintendent said. "This gave us the opportunity to get all the positions that we know are reflective of the work that we're going to do and how we're going to move forward."

 

Dean said there are also contract negotiations ongoing and this budget will "build a little contingency" and flexibility for those talks. 

 

Hoyt said she and Green had been to the listening session hosted by state Sen. Paul Mark at which the chair of Ways and Means thought the Legislature could do better on Chapter 70 school aid than the governor's budget. She asked Dean what that extra money would mean for the town's budget. 

 

The superintendent said he'd be open to a discussion with the board because he appreciated the support. However, he said, there might not be any to discuss until after July 1. 

 

The departments were passed separately with Selectman Joseph Nowak voting against the executive section (he had advocated for an increase in board stipends), Hoyt recusing and removing herself from Finance & Technology because it included insurance and she sits on the board of the Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association, and Nowak voting against and Chair John Duval abstaining from the Hoosac Valley budget.