MARBLEHEAD– At Monday’s Finance Committee meeting, the discussion highlighted the need for thorough financial planning in Marblehead to ensure the town’s fiscal health.
The Chair of the finance committee, Alec Goolsby, stated that a portion of the budget could be determined by identifying the personnel in each municipal department.
There are approximately 800 to 900 people employed by the town of Marblehead, he said.
Goolsby said he wanted the committee to map out the number of employees in the town by their department, salaries, and wages to get a better understanding of where allocations are being used by departments.
He said the committee would have to wait for the contract negotiations of the Marblehead Education Association to finish taking place before they can input those numbers. Goolsby added he welcomes the school’s finance committee to attend the Town’s FinCom meetings.
He said the committee will create a spreadsheet with a person’s initials, their position, their wage, salary, department, and if they are on health insurance provided by the town.
The committee will also be looking into positions within town departments and school-wide positions.
They will determine if a position is vacant if a position is being funded but is not currently filled, and if people are holding positions while there are vacancies.
The committee also transferred $201,002 between departments within the town.
This included transferring money out of expenses such as police and fire salaries, Memorial and Veteran’s Days, building inspection salaries, and health insurance.
These funds were transferred to select board expenses, “other interest,” assessor salaries, public building expenses, building inspections, engineering salaries, clerk expenses, clerk salaries, elections and registrations, planning board, military service retirement, snow removal, and veteran benefits.
