SAUGUS — Town Meeting members unanimously approved a $107.5 million budget for fiscal year 2024, fully funding the school department’s $31.6 million request and allocating $75.9 million for the municipal general operating budget Monday evening.
The budget, on the Annual Town Meeting warrant as Article 2, passed with surprisingly little controversy as Town Meeting members asked few questions about the 71-page document. School Committee Chairman Vincent Serino spoke briefly, thanking Town Manager Scott Crabtree, the Finance Committee, the Board of Selectmen, and Town Meeting members for their support on the committee’s budget, a $1.3 million increase from the FY23 budget.
“We understand there’s one pie,” Serino said, adding that previous committees have sought to present their budgets as separate from those of the town. “Thank you for the trust.”
Acting Superintendent of Schools Michael Hashem, who took the helm of the town’s public schools in the midst of the budget process with Superintendent Erin McMahon on paid administrative leave, echoed Serino.
“I appreciate the fact that we’re working together as one community,” said Hashem, the former principal of Saugus High School.
Crabtree had initially proposed allocating $30.8 million to the schools, but revealed his plan to add to that allocation during a meeting of the Finance Committee last week. Crabtree said the town opted to meet the request in an attempt to meet the needs of its schools.
“We’re just trying to do what we can to support the schools,” he said in a brief interview after last week’s meeting. “We try to support that as a priority.”
The request approved by Town Meeting is a $1.2 million reduction from the budget first proposed by McMahon in January.
The budget first put forward by Crabtree in February sought a $110 million allocation from Town Meeting, and the Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to approve that figure. Crabtree said last week the disparity between the budget he presented in February and the document approved Monday is a result of the lack of finalized numbers when the budget was first created in February. He cited reductions in health insurance and the assessment levied to the town for the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational School as areas where numbers fluctuated during the three-month budget process.
“Even now we don’t have a lot of finalized numbers,” he said, adding that the budget is “conservative enough [that] we won’t find ourselves in a bind.”
Crabtree said conservative budgeting means the town can continue to avoid cuts, pumping additional funds into the budget should expenses come in higher than projected.
“It’s a lot easier to come in with underestimates than overestimates,” he said.
Crabtree cited state aid as a major unknown factor that could sway the town’s budget.
Town Meeting also made short work of the remaining financial articles on the annual warrant. It approved a 5 percent water-rate increase by a 38-5 margin, an $8.4 million allocation for the water enterprise fund, and a $5.9 million allocation for the sewer enterprise fund with a 3 percent increase already approved by the Board of Selectmen.
