I. Council Action Requested.
Title
To confirm the municipal net budget at $23,854,048. (Excludes Overlay & TIF)
Body
II. Basis for Council Action.
Council approval of this item is required because;
a. according to Article II, Section 3(G) of the Charter, the Town Council shall have the power to "approve an annual budget and recommend same to the Town Meeting, subject to the provisions of this Charter, and
b. according to Article V, Section 4 of the Charter, "[t]he proposed budget prepared by the Manager shall be reviewed by the Council which shall approve the budget with or without amendments. The complete Town budget as approved by the Council shall be printed and distributed and the Council shall fix the time and place for holding a public hearing on the budget, and shall give a public notice of such hearing as provided in this Charter. The Council shall then review the budget and recommend it with or without change to the annual Town Meeting, no later than thirty (30) days prior to the beginning of the new fiscal year.
III. Issue Summary.
In preparation of establishing mil rate options, we discovered an error in the annual Town Meeting warrant under Article 7. This number did not correspond to individual Articles and was higher than necessary. To maintain a zero municipal budget and not over-tax the residents, I am recommending we correct the error and use the true budget number which is $375,129 lower. This 2020/2021 budget number is the budget number discussed at the Council public hearing meetings.
To alleviate any confusion, the net budgetary number, excluding TIF and overlay, to be used for the mil rate determination is $23,854,048. The error is simply a math miscalculation involving changes with the County budget and 2019 Overlay & TIF allocation.