Dear Rockport citizens: A letter from the Select Board about new plan for municipal budget development
As some members of the town’s Budget Committee communicated in a recent Letter to the Editor, the town Select Board is working with the Budget Committee earlier in the fiscal year than is typical.
Under our Town Charter, and as is customary in Rockport town government, the Budget Committee begins its work once the town manager has prepared his budget and presented it to the Budget Committee and the Select Board for review, typically by March 1.
Then for the next month the Budget Committee meets and provides to the Select Board any recommendations it has on the budget; the Select Board reviews the Budget Committee’s recommendations and issues its final budget for voter approval in June.
In our budget review process this past spring, many good ideas for cost savings and efficiencies were identified in our combined Budget Committee and Select Board meetings. To that end, the Select Board recently adopted its goals for this fiscal year incorporating many of the ideas from last year’s budget meetings into this year’s Select Board and Town Manager goals.
With those goals in mind and in a break with tradition, our Board will begin this fall to work with the Budget Committee, who have volunteered to work with us on important efforts to manage key budget items.
We will hold several joint Select Board/ Budget Committee meetings this fall to discuss key aspects of the upcoming budget process – essentially a pre-budget process. This will allow us to take maximum advantage of the engagement of our current Budget Committee members and their good ideas for cost efficiencies, while still respecting the specified roles of the Select Board and the Budget Committee under our Town Charter.
To accomplish these goals, we have tasked town staff with moving up the timetable for their budget preparation and seeking solutions to the cost issues raised last March. The workload on our staff to assist in this important effort will be considerable but one where all hands involved can hopefully find efficiencies and savings which benefit our entire community.
We welcome public engagement in the budget process and any other matters that the Select Board is working on – all of which can be reviewed in our posted monthly meeting agendas and packets on the Town website, along with the current and past budgets. And, of course, our meetings are open to the public, on the second Monday of the month, at 6 p.m. in the lower level of the Opera House, or via the video links provided on the Town website.
We value the opportunity to serve you and welcome your thoughts and questions on this or any other town issue.
Rockport Select Board: Denise Munger, Michelle Hannan, Kimberlee Graffam, Michael Thompson, John Viehman