Franklin Matters: Finance Committee hears updates from School Committee, approves series of measures to send to Town Council (video)

Friday, May 17, 2024

Finance Committee hears updates from School Committee, approves series of measures to send to Town Council (video)

The Franklin, MA Finance Committee met as scheduled on Wednesday, May 15 at 7 PM in the Council Chambers. This was the 3rd of three budget hearings.

7 members of the committee participated, one remotely so all votes were via roll call. 2 members were absent.

The meeting agenda -> https://www.franklinma.gov/sites/g/files/vyhlif10036/f/agendas/2024-05-15_finance_committee_agenda_packet.pdf

Franklin TV video replay available on YouTube -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nQoCPNfd4A&t=53s

Quick recap:

Town Administrator Jamie Hellen briefly covered the Tri-County and Norfolk Aggie budget items. Their representatives were unable to participate this year.
Franklin School Superintendent Lucas Giguere, Business Administrator Dr Dutch, and School Committee Vie-Chair Dave McNeill presented from the table. Asst Supt Paula Marano provided updates on special education programs and answered those questions
As the budget has been presented a number of times, there was an attempt to provide the "readers digest" version, and they were mostly successful.
Some changes noted:

They did provide an update on the migrant funded from DESE, a check for $335K+ was just received and another to account for the 72 students currently in the system is expected in June. These funds can only be used to support the migrant students and are not in the budget
The transportation increased projected earlier at 1100 was reduced to $500 per student and to compensate, the number of FTEs potentially laid off would increase from 30 to 47
They also presented an outlook on the funding to be allocated assuming the override does pass. The schools would get the $6.3M in the first year, and then $4M plus in each succeeding year

The committee then votes to approve the series of resolutions to provide the fund accounting for the budget. Only one vote received a "no", all others passed by the 7-0-2 (7 for, 0 against, 2 absent)

Water rate increase was approved for the next 2 years (Council still needs to approve)
Curbside pickup rate increase approved (Council still needs to approve)
Stormwater fee increase approved (Council still needs to approve)

My notes in one PDF -> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1glI98EwFQFhgMW0OFeAJ6ZrSFGBxMusm/view?usp=drive_link