Snow And Ice Deficit Going Into New Fiscal Year

Norfolk town officials have decided to deficit spend the town’s snow and ice budget as­suming there is no override for the coming fiscal year. The town nearly always spends more money than it ap­propriates for snow and ice re­moval, but town officials usu­ally use money that has been appropriated but is unencum­bered

(known as “free cash”) to cover the gap in the current fiscal year. This year, though, there isn’t enough free cash to close the gap. Town Meeting, on the advice of the town’s Advisory Board, recommended that the town make various transfers to add $140,395 to the snow and ice budget, but that still leaves a deficitof $73,597. Advisory Board member Marc Waldman made the mo­tion at annual Town Meeting this past Tuesday night to make budget transfers to cover certain deficits, snow and ice being by far the largest. “One of the things we want everybody in this room and ev­erybody at home to realize [is] that the $140,395 we’re asking to fund the snow and ice defi­cit

doesn’t even begin to cover the entire deficit. We still have $73,597 of snow and ice deficitthat we don’t have any money to cover this year, and we’re go­ing to be asking that you give us some time into next year to try to figure out the funding of that,” Waldman said. “We’ve just flatrun out of money in the town.”

State law allows a snow and ice budget deficit to be carried forward to the following fiscal year. The budget transfers totaled $188,315. Besides snow and ice, the money went to firefighter sala­ries ($10,000), Fire Department training salaries ($6,186), town counsel budget ($10,400), elec­tion salaries ($10,000), elec­tion expenses ($3,000), Advisory Board expenses ($350), and per­sonnel board expenses ($200), highway expenses ($1,525), high­way salaries ($1,344.82), vehicle maintenance salaries ($986.57), Department of Public Works ad­ministrative expenses ($169.80), grounds maintenance salaries ($152.53), and solid waste sala­ries ($105.28). In addition, the town’s library transferred $3,500 from its sala­ries account to its expenses ac­count. The Fire Department has experienced injuries to three firefighters, requiring extra ex­penses in salaries. The Town Clerk has had to run two previously unexpected elections (the U.S. Senate special primary and elementary school debt exclusion December 8 and the U.S. Senate special final elec­tion

January 19) and will have a third (a special election for an operating budget override refer­endum) on June 22. Much of the money going to the Department of Public Works is paying the costs of dealing with flooding from the heavy rains of March, Waldman said. The transfer money came partly from employee benefits ($80,000), the ambulance re­ceipts reserve ($10,000), build­ing and liability insurance ($10,000), police parking ticket revolving fund ($8,000), firetraining expenses ($6,186), cer­tification

for notes and bonds ($5,000), Advisory Board sala­ries ($4,000). Part of the money also came from so-called “free cash” ($61,629), which consists if money that has been appropri­ated in the past but is unencum­bered.

The building and liability in­surance bids come in after the budget is set every year, and the town realized a savings from its original cost estimate last spring, Waldman said.