Budget may make early appearance for Saugus

SAUGUS – The Finance Committee is on track for what could be an historical moment next month, delivering the budget to Town Meeting by mid-May.The annual meeting opens officially on the first Monday of each May, but the budget seldom makes an appearance before June, often very late in June. However, Finance Committee Chairman Robert Palleschi said it’s the committee’s goal to get the budget in earlier this year and he believes they are on track to do so.Several communities, such as Norton and Medway, are actually pushing Town Meetings back, preferring to wait to see how state aid packages and other budgetary woes shake out before putting it before Town Meeting voters. Palleschi said since Saugus holds one of the latest Town Meetings in the state, pushing back the date really isn’t necessary. The fact that there is little to fight over also makes it less necessary to wait.”There’s nothing really up for grabs,” he said. “Everything is level funded.”That level funding includes the schools, which is why Superintendent Richard Langlois told the Finance Committee it’s very important to him that Town Meeting gets the budget in May. Level funding the School Department actually leaves it $800,000 short in covering contractual increases, although Town Manager Andrew Bisignani said he is committed to trying to make up that difference. While he has managed to scrape up another $200,000 thus far, that is as close as he’s gotten.The problem that poses for the School Department is that if Langlois is going to have to lay off teachers he is required to give them their pink slips prior to the end of the year. In the past, former Superintendent Keith Manville was forced to lay off teachers only to rehire them weeks later when the town finally approved the budget. Langlois is hoping to avoid that because he doesn’t want to risk losing any of his highly qualified teachers.Palleschi said while Langlois’ concerns were certainly taken into account, the push to get the budget down wasn’t necessarily to accommodate him.Last year, the Finance Committee committed to getting through its departmental meetings quicker and readying the budget faster. However, Palleschi pointed out it’s not as simple as finishing their own tasks, often they have to wait on others for information as well.Palleschi said the committee is sometimes held up by Town Manager Andrew Bisignani as he waits for information to come in from the state. If that happens this year, Palleschi said he would prefer to make changes later in the process if need be than to get hung up on the waiting for the state to act.”It’s killing process,” he said in terms of waiting.The only other hang up he perceives is possible debate over the vocational school tuition payment. He said he would like to meet with school officials to discuss the issue but he isn’t holding out hope that it will happen.”It hasn’t happened for as long as I’ve been on the committee and that’s about 30 years,” he said.Town Moderator Robert Long said he’s been attending Finance Committee meetings and he, too, is heartened by the progress. He said he believes meeting members will be pleasantly surprised to have the budget in hand earlier than they have in over a decade.”We’re trying to keep the train on the track and get the budget into the station by mid May,” Palleschi said. “I think we’ll do it.”