MARBLEHEAD — Finance Committee Chair Alec Goolsby presented an update on fiscal planning to the Select Board.
He said that a message went out in June to all department heads providing the schedule and plan for them to submit their initial budgets for fiscal year 2026.
“The Finance Committee and finance department is getting going with the budget-planning season a little bit earlier than maybe years past,” Goolsby said.
Goolsby said that the goal is to have a longer and more detailed forecast. He went on to say that the committee needs to deeply scrub each department to demonstrate that the results are accurate, as the process is important to the town’s taxpayers.
He added that the committee needs to put together a presentation “that shows trends in the industry, where the rates are going, where economists think the rates will go, that shows we’ve done our diligence and these are our true expenses the next three to five years.”
The committee broke down the town’s budget into four categories: salaries, insurance/benefits, pensions, and other expenses. Goolsby said salaries, insurance/benefits, and pensions make up 83% of the budget.
In order to really examine each department, Goolsby said, a data-collection template has been created and will be filled in by each department head, with their liaison assisting them.
