Mayor O'Connell presents "fiscally conservative" FY2021 Taunton preliminary budget
TAUNTON – Mayor Shaunna O’Connell on Monday night presented her fiscal year 2021 preliminary budget to the Taunton City Council.
The good news, according to O’Connell, is that the budget in its present form contains no layoffs or furloughs of municipal workers.
The unsettling news, she said, is that there is no way of knowing how much local aid may be cut by lawmakers on Beacon Hill in their final budget.
It's conceivable that layoffs could result, depending on how much local aid funding is cut, in order to present a balanced budget in November when the supplemental, final version budget is presented to the City Council.
But the mayor on Tuesday said she stands by the introductory comments she made Monday night to the city council.
"This is a priority for us. We're working really hard to keep our people employed," she said.
Gov. Charlie Baker in late January presented a $44.6 billion state budget recommendation.
But by mid March, after it became clear that the coronavirus pandemic was going to severely affect the nation’s economy, Baker was quoted as saying that the economy and tax revenue in Massachusetts were both going to “take a big hit.”
First the House and then the Senate by May would usually have approved a budget, with a final version being sent to the governor by the beginning of July for final approval.
But the uncertainty and unpredictability caused by COVID-19 has stymied that process.
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O’Connell, now in her first term as mayor after serving nearly five terms as 3rd Bristol state representative, told the councilors via their weekly Zoom video meeting that her “fiscally conservative” approach will make it possible to avoid dipping too deeply into the city’s stabilization account.
Her FY2021 preliminary budget proposal draws $2.5 million from the stabilization, or rainy day, fund to balance the budget. The previous budget for FY2020 drew $7.5 million from the fund, she said.
The nominal transfer of cash, she said, will leave $15 million in the stabilization fund.
O’Connell said that she and her advisors, including budget director Gill E. Enos, managed to whittle down the departmental budget request of $220 million to an amount coming in at just under $215 million.
Formulating the budget proposal, she said, “was no easy task.”
A similar reduction amount was included in the FY2020 preliminary budget. Former mayor Thomas Hoye at the time proposed a $207.7 million budget after initially receiving a departmental request for $212 million.
Budget director Enos, in a letter to the City Council, put the total FY2021 preliminary budget at $238.8 million, which includes $11 million each from the water and sewer enterprise funds.
Gov. Baker in March noted that the state had $3.5 billion in its rainy day fund, but he declined to speculate as to whether or how much he might eventually have to utilize to offset any financial damage to municipalities wrought by COVID-19.
State budgetary data states that Taunton in FY2020 received $63 million in Chapter 70 public school funding and $8.9 million in unrestricted general aid.
In the governor’s FY2021 recommendation for local aid distribution, the local aid amount listed for Taunton is $68 million and $9.1 million respectively.
Some councilors, including Chris Coute, John McCaul and Jeffrey Postell, complimented O’Connell for her fiscally conservative approach. McCaul also praised her for previously announcing a hiring freeze shortly after taking office in January.
Veteran city councilor and former Schools Superintendent Donald Cleary, however, described O’Connell’s preliminary budget as “a fairly bleak budget” that includes “Draconian cuts.”
O’Connell pointedly replied that if not for her fiscally conservative approach there likely would be even “bigger Draconian cuts” on the horizon.
“There will be more difficult times ahead,” she added.
Councilor Barry Sanders said the preliminary budget comprises “a curious set of numbers” in terms of the amount the city will have to contribute to the public school system.
Sanders said he would like to know exactly how much FY2021 funding that Schools Superintendent John Cabral is requesting for his department.
“I’m sure they’re incurring COVID-19 expenses,” Sanders said.
O’Connell said Cabral will present his budget request this Wednesday.
The mayor noted the financial hardships being faced by municipalities across the state by including a quote from the Mass Taxpayers Foundation.
“The Commonwealth will have limited budgetary flexibility for the next several years as tax revenues slowly rebound,” the statement read.
O’Connell credited her personal staff as well as all city department heads and workers for working tirelessly in a team effort since March, when a COVID-19 state of emergency was declared first on a state and then a federal level.
During her presentation, the mayor noted that unemployment in Taunton now stands at just over 21 percent, as compared to 24.4 percent in New Bedford and 24.1 percent in Fall River.
In a section called “Bracing for the Worst,” O’Connell listed anticipated decreases of funding for the following categories: local aid from the state; Chapter 70 education and Chapter 90 road-repair funding; revenue; growth; and investment income.
Under the heading of “rising costs” she listed the following: New City Hall operating expenses, as part of the $27 million refurbishing of City Hall downtown; an increase in trash disposal costs; the city’s pension fund; Medicare; and risk management.
On a page titled “Added Challenges: Landfill Closure,” O’Connell stated that her administration — “after countless meetings, budget planning sessions and contract negotiations for trash disposal” — was able to “mitigate the impact” of the recent closure of Taunton’s landfill.
The mayor says the city in FY2021 will pay an additional $875,000 as compared to the previous fiscal year to have its trash hauled out of town. She said the city will also pay $68,582 less than it did the year before for disposal of recyclable waste.
That, she said, amounts to a year-over-year increase of just over $807,000.
But it also doesn’t take into account the annual loss of nearly $1.5 million in tipping, or royalty, fees the city in recent years collected as a percentage payment from Waste Management Inc., which managed the landfill.
O’Connell said measures implemented in recent months by her administration to offset financial hardships caused by the pandemic have included a City of Taunton Small Business Sustainability Fund; extending local-tax due dates; implementing a spending freeze; limiting discretionary spending; and establishing access to a Small Business Recovery Grant Program.
O’Connell also said an agreement has been struck with Amazon, which has a large warehouse and fulfillment center on the Fall River/Freetown border, to occupy an existing building in the Myles Standish Industrial Park.
She said the new “delivery distribution center” will lead to “some jobs” being created.
The mayor, however, provided no other details about the agreement with Amazon, other than to say that the company has “been really great to work with.”
O’Connell, in her presentation, also said she’s optimistic about the future of the now-vacant Whittenton Mills complex — which last year became mired in a legal battle between the city and a development group that had plans to convert the site into housing units and professional office space.
The city has “reconnected with investors to bring them back to the table and reignite stalled development discussions,” according to the mayor.
Funding priorities, she said, include $2.5 million in appropriations for new police vehicles; public safety communications and IT equipment; repairs to Hopewell Park pool's splash pad; building repairs; new fire engine equipment; and the new Liberty and Union Park downtown.
She said the advent of the coronavirus pandemic six weeks after taking office has foreshadowed day to day operations in city hall.
"We face the unknown here on a daily basis," O'Connell said.
This week's council meeting was held on Monday so as not to interfere with Tuesday's special election for the 3rd Bristol state representative seat.