LYNNFIELD — The Lynnfield Select Board unanimously approved the FY2027 budget, including the operating, capital, and enterprise budgets, which, according to Town Administrator Rob Dolan, is balanced.
“We have an agreement with the School Committee regarding the amount that was discussed previously. It’s a balanced budget meeting all the guidelines and the goals of the override two years ago,” Dolan said.
He stated that he thinks it positions them well for the next fiscal year.
Vice Chair Alexis Leahy brought up looking at a three-year projection and whether there were plans in place to do so. She also asked whether the budget reflected what the Board was anticipating.
Chair Phil Crawford noted that the three-year outlook is “projections and best guesses at this point” and that this vote was strictly for the budget approval right now and not the outlook yet.
“I do want to bring forward a three-year outlook after this. I am going to meet with the school department this week to talk about the changes that they were looking to make and then see if there are any other changes we want to anticipate,” he said.
Crawford stated he wanted to handle the current budget before bringing forward the projections.
Leahy stated she was hesitant due to concerns that they’ve heard.
“We’ve heard a lot of concerns from people I think in town too about how are we planning for what we’re anticipating,” she said.
Leahy wanted to look into this ahead of the recommendations for the budget.
“We know they’re going to change, right? The inputs are going to change. It’s a guess at this point. It’s our best guess, knowing what some of the challenges might be. And so that’s where I was coming from with that comment and kind of my hesitation on what we’re doing tonight,” she said.
Crawford said there are plans to have a forecast, and he plans on meeting with other department heads, including the superintendent of schools.
“I think what we have in front of us now is the approval of our existing budget that we have worked on. It’s all been approved. We’ve worked several months on getting this balanced. Rob’s done a fantastic job. Dave’s (Castellarin) done a fantastic job. We’ve agreed with all the departments on where we are, and I don’t see any reason not to move forward on this existing budget,” Crawford said.
Board member Dick Dalton stated his only concern was getting the budget out in time for people to “digest it and have plenty of time before Town Meeting to come back with comments.”
Also discussed briefly was the FY27 Capital proposal.
“There’s been a couple of nice findings over the last few days. Rep. Brad Jones informed us that there’s $100,000… We applied for $100,000 for the new playground to fund a piece of that, and that got approved,” Crawford said.
The $100,000 was able to be moved from the playground to the improvements needed at the middle school auditorium. Crawford noted that another $50,000 would be coming in.
