Longmeadow Select Board talks budget and drafts town meeting warrant

March 24, 2020 |

LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow Select Board met for a regularly scheduled meeting on March 16 and spent most of the meeting talking about the fiscal year 2021 (FY21) budget and drafting the warrant for the upcoming spring town meeting.

The first order of business at the meeting was to declare a state of emergency for the town as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, which the board unanimously approved with little discussion.

One order of old business at the meeting was the discussion of a partial street closure on Bliss Road for a lacrosse jamboree on May 16. During the discussion Traffic and Safety Sgt. Carl Mazzaferro explained how parking would be handled during the day after questions were raised about the plan at the Feb. 18 meeting.

He said, “Our goal is to have the least impact we can on residents. I don’t want residents to see a line of cars parked in front of their house, that’s what I’m trying to limit by only allowing residents on streets adjacent to the tournament.”

The Select Board unanimously approved the motion for the partial street closure.

During the meeting the Select Board also unanimously approved to hire Michael Smith to the Historical Commission after he interviewed for the position at the March 2 meeting.

The largest orders of business at the meeting were continued discussions in regards to the upcoming town meeting and the FY21 budget. Town Manager Lyn Simmons said while they are still planning to host the Town Meeting as scheduled, this could change due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“As of right now we are asking you to vote on the budget and warrant articles with the presumption that we will hold the annual town meeting on May 12. As of right now we are proceeding with the current date and will change our plans if need be,” she said.

After bringing up potentially receiving lower state aid than in years past at the last meeting, Finance Director Paul Pasterzcyk said that was only one of the only current outstanding issues with the budget, but there are plans in place if that number is lower than expected.

He said, “Because Longmeadow relies on 10 percent of its budget from state revenues, we’re in a much better spot than a community that relies on 50 or 60 percent. If we did take a hit, depending on the severity we could look at excess capacity or other reserves such as free cash.”

Pasterzcyk added, “At this point I’m not worried about any extreme hit that the Town can’t absorb for this first year, longer term issues may develop, but I think we can absorb any hit for FY21.”

Board member Mark Gold expressed his concerns over approving the budget in its current state if it meant having to cut it down at a later date if things like the state aid were lower than expected. “I think it’s premature to put a budget forward we’re not sure of. I think if we have the authority to differ the town budget to the town meeting to approve this I’d feel a lot more comfortable that what we’re putting before the town is something we can stick with. I just don’t feel comfortable that this is going to be the final budget,” he said.

Because of the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, Select Board Chair Marie Angelides offered a compromise to potentially push the Town Meeting date back. She said, “How about we vote on the budget tonight and we don’t close the warrant for posting until we meet again in one week or the beginning of April, that way we will have another day to see if there are big changes in the crisis.”

The board agreed to push the closing off the warrant articles until its next meeting on March 27.

After the budget discussion, the Select Board jumped into drafting the warrant article for the spring Town Meeting by reviewing the 44 proposed warrant articles.

During the discussion about the budget for warrant article 13, Gold echoed the same concerns, and both he and Richard Foster both voted against approving the budget for the town meeting, which was the biggest split among any of the articles discussed.

 Foster also expressed his concerns over Article 16, which was the list of capital projects for the year and in particular projects for renovations in schools that might be replaced.

“What bothers me the most is that I’ve seen projects on here that have jumped on here and we’re acting like they’re high priorities,” he said, “I understand the importance of every one of these projects, but we’re getting ready to replace our schools and I question the importance of energy management systems in a total scope of possible repairs at those schools to make them better for our children.”

Angelides echoed similar concerns to Foster and said, “I agree with Richard in that we see things pop up that we’ve never seen before, which is very frustrating for us. I think it’s been a long term concern with the Select Board that it’s more of a wish list than programmatic.”

Ultimately the board voted to approve 43 of the 44 warrant articles.

The Select Board will next meet on March 27.

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