Marblehead in the black for third consecutive year

MARBLEHEAD – The Finance Committee report to the voters for the May 5 Town Meeting offers more joy than gloom.The joy stems from a town financial picture that is in the black for the third year in a row. The Finance Committee is recommending a Fiscal 2009 budget of $65.75 million, $39 million for general government and $26.7 million for the schools, amounts the town can raise without a general override of Proposition 2 1/2.Finance Committee Chairman William Corbett Jr. credits the town’s energy reserve fund and the Medical Claim Trust Fund with helping to release some of the financial pressure in those areas. They claim the fund is in the black this year.But in municipal finance gloom is never totally absent. Corbett listed five concerns that could affect future budgets, including volatile fuel costs and state aid receipts and proposed federal regulations that are likely to reduce the town’s Medicaid reimbursements.Closer to home, 2007 building permit fees were down $174,000, or 27 percent, and auto excise tax receipts were down $100,000, or 3 percent. If those figures don’t improve, the reductions will impact the revenue side of the Fiscal 2010 budget.Locals are hoping that the voters can conclude their work on this year’s 45-article Town Warrant in two nights.Among the articles, the Finance Committee is recommending indefinite postponement of Article 21, in which neighbors are asking the town to purchase Longview Drive property from Mario Angenica as open space. It is the third time the proposal has come before Town Meeting.The Finance Committee is holding off until Town Meeting on articles proposing the purchase of the former WESX property on Naugus Avenue, a transfer of the proceeds from the Marblehead Veterans Middle School to another school project and capital expenditures on school security, school technology, the Marblehead Village School, the Glover and Eveleth schools and the Gerry Elementary School.Superintendent of Schools Paul Dulac said last week the $98,700 four-part school security program will be funded with money that is already available to the schools, and so will the Gerry School’s $25,000 in repairs.