LONGMEADOW – The Longmeadow Select Board met for a regularly scheduled meeting in conjunction with the finance committee to discuss progress on the town’s budget for the 2021 fiscal year on March 2.

The brief meeting began with an interview with Michael Smith for a vacancy on the town’s Historical Commission. Select Board Vice Chair Richard Foster asked Smith why he wanted to apply for the commission and he said, “I was surprised by the amount of history in the town, whether it’s the cemeteries, the wildlife areas or the stores. The more we researched it, the more history we found that we didn’t expect so when I saw that vacancy I thought it would be a great way to be a part of the community.”

During the meeting Foster issued a warning to residents about information they see about the coronavirus and said, “Apparently there’s a lot of false articles being put out, there’s a lot of phony products being advertised on Amazon and eBay. You might want to go to national health recognized sources for information on this, there’s a lot of panic being spread and a lot of it seems for profit purposes.”

For the bulk of the meeting, the select board talked about different aspects about the yearly budget, including a presentation about the budget from Town Manager Lyn Simmons. One aspect of the budget Simmons pointed out is that the town will be receiving less state aid this year than for the 2020 fiscal year. “Some challenges in the FY 2021 budget include state aid, which is the second largest revenue source for the town, only saw increase of 2.37 percent which is much less than the 6.6 percent we saw in FY 2020,” she said.

One current issue Board Member Mark Gold had with the budget is the amount of overtime the town pays for each year. He said, “I’ve been an advocate to staff up the fire department to cut down on the overtime. I want everyone to understand and support that even though it’s contrary to not hire, it’s gonna save our overtime. I think it’s the third or fourth year in a row we’ve overspent on overtime with the fire department.”

After the budget discussion, the select board talked about several of the warrant articles for the annual Town Meeting in May before the board makes an official vote on the articles on March 16.

One of the sticking points from the warrant article discussion was the talk of having three ambulances in town. Foster said, “You keep escalating and building something in a vacuum where we have significant problems in our town financially when we’re looking toward the future. I think there’s a lot of questions that can be asked on this.”

During the discussion, Gold brought up a point that the town should be using the $59,000 left over in the tax revenue from FY 2020. “Leaving the money in that fund serves no purpose, it’s money we’re not spending and it’s money we are taxing people to raise.”

Foster expressed his own concerns over the unspent money and said, “We understand the money is going to flush back and forth, we’re not saying that’s wrong, we’re just worried about where the money is sitting and if it gets back to the appropriate funds for the next year.”

The Longmeadow Select Board will next meet on March 16.