Saugus ends up with a $1.3M free cash windfall

SAUGUS – Saugus Town Manager Andrew Bisignani announced Friday that the town was certified for $1.3 million in free cash for fiscal year 2012.”For the current fiscal year, this is certainly a big help,” said Bisignani.Bisignani said the town will now be able to resolve its $800,000 deficit heading into the next fiscal year, which will allow the town to set the new tax rate.”We’ll have the money to do that,” said Bisignani. “But there are some underfunded accounts. We have an overlay deficit from 2011 ? we’re also underfunded in the medicare taxes account and way underfunded in the unemployment compensation account.”The free cash account is the total available unrestricted funds left over from the previous year. The town experienced a $416,666 deficit in the free cash account last year, the result of borrowed funds not posting until after the end of the 2010 fiscal year.”It’s revenues in excess of our estimates,” said Bisignani. “We had some appropriations left over, bits and pieces from here and there. So you add it all up. We had some issues last year and we corrected those issues. We worked with the Department of Revenue and they were very helpful to us.”Selectmen Chairman and State Rep. Donald Wong called the $1.3 million a “very nice surprise.””It’s a great thing for the budget,” said Wong. “We have an $800,000 deficit and this will help pay for that.”If we don’t balance the budget, next year we’re going to be in worse condition. It’s more money than (Bisignani) thought he was going to find and I’m glad.”Bisignani stressed that the $1.3 million in free cash can’t be expected every year.”This is one-time money,” said Bisignani. “This isn’t a continuous source of revenue like property tax ? It’s not something that we can anticipate getting next year.”It’s this reason that Bisignani said the town proposed the snow and ice assessment in June.”There’s no way to predict what you’re going to get in free cash,” said Bisignani. “You don’t know it until you close your books and see what’s left. The ice and snow deficit was actual. We don’t know what the amount is every year, we can only guess. We know we’re going to get snow and we know we’re going to have to fund it.”Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter at @MattTempesta.