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Proposed Municipal Budget 2018-2019: Overview and Process.
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For the last five years the Council's budget process, initiated by the submission of the manager's proposed budget, has focused on what the budget intends to accomplish. This approach has been based on the notion that a budget is a plan for what the town intends to do expressed in terms of dollars and cents, and that to have meaningful discussion about the numbers we have to start with what we intend to do.
Discussion has to get to the numbers and what the Council believes is workable, but should start with what progress it proposes to make and what work it gets done. Some of those things are expressed in the draft strategic plan for the next three years, the comprehensive master plan update, and various capital plans.
The manager's proposed budget for 2018-2019, as submitted electronically to the Council on March 30, 2018 is attached. A more complete version is available for download in sections at http://www.windhammaine.us/512/Proposed-Budget. At $18,979,239 the proposed budget is $878,957, or 4.9%, more than the approved budget for fiscal 2018. In addition, it:
* reflects the draft strategic plan, which incorporates the "4 Big Things" from the Comprehensive Master Plan Update, and a number of staffing additions with implementation staggered over the fiscal year;
* continues to use fund balance to manage the tax levy and support capital, but leaves additional fund balance above the target for next year, when the first SMF principal payment comes due;
* adds $150,000 for roads, but shifts some funds from pavement preservation to Brand Road to complete Phase I except for paving. Phases II and III would be done in FY 2020 and 2021 unless other funding was identified;
* funds Smith Cemetery expansion from existing building improvement funds; and
* increases the tax levy by about 3.3%. If we weren't going through a revaluation, that would probably translate into a tax rate increase of around...
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