Town Council votes for $110 million operating budget

After the second budget hearing on Thursday, the Town Council voted unanimously for the $110,275,241. The vote was via roll call as Councilor Tom Mercer was participating via telephone conference call.

Unlike most recent years where the budget had little real increases in hours or services, this time around there are a few.

• Increase TA staff hours for passports and purchasing
• One custodian for new HS
• One patrol officer/one dispatcher
• Added PT clerical hours at Fire Dept.
• Added staff hours at Senior Center
• Added Sunday hours at Library

The TA (Town Administrator) increase in staff is really a shift of hours from the Town Clerk. Apparently, the Town Clerk can no longer legally process the passports. The Town will continue to provide this service but via the Town Administrators office (not the Town Clerk's office).

The first two pages of the Budget Summary presentation from Wednesday's budget hearing are shown here



(the remaining pages will be posted this weekend as I convert the hard copy to PDF format to share here)

Franklin Municipal Building - the setting for the Town Council meetings

Additional details on the budget can be found on the following links:

Town Administrator's FY 2015 budget file
http://town.franklin.ma.us/Pages/FranklinMA_Admin/FY%2015%20Budget%20File.pdf

Town Administrator's budget letter (details on the changes to the budget)
http://town.franklin.ma.us/Pages/FranklinMA_Admin/BudgetLetter.pdf

Copies of this year and prior year budget documents can be found here
http://town.franklin.ma.us/Pages/FranklinMA_Admin/budgets/

Franklin Matters reporting on the Finance Committee's detail review of the budget during their set of budget hearings

Budget hearing #4
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2014/03/live-reporting-finance-committee-budget_26.html

Budget hearing #3
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2014/03/live-reporting-finance-committee-budget_20.html

Budget hearing #2
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2014/03/live-reporting-finance-committee-budget_13.html

Budget hearing #1
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2014/03/live-reporting-finance-committee-budget.html

audio version (the meeting was not recorded by Franklin TV)
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2014/03/fincom-budget-hearing-mar-11-audio.html
Finance Committee - 04/01/14 (Capital budget review, final vote on FY 2015)