Sandwich Taking Early Look at 2017 Budget

CCB MEDIA PHOTO

CCB MEDIA PHOTO

SANDWICH – The town of Sandwich is crunching numbers on the 2017 fiscal year budget.

Town Manager Bud Dunham says thet haven’t had a Proposition 2½ override in 12 fiscal years and is confident they will not require one next year.

“Sort of the marching orders from myself and the superintendent of schools was to try to come back with a level-service budget and to figure out what that cost would be but not to go over three percent,” Dunham said.

Dunham said it is too early in the process to know what the final numbers will be.

“It’s sort of an exercise that we do every year to come up with what we think the budget will be but you always have to be flexible and ready to change things as we know better some of our costs and revenues,” Dunham said.

Dunham said the town has been pretty good about identifying the operating type items of the budget but have not been able to address the larger scale capital needs.

“Just in speaking with the departments, including the school department, we know there are several of those smaller type needs for the upcoming year that we are working on,” he said. “That’s a separate process that we do distinct from the operating budget.”

Dunham said he usually makes recommendations to the Board of Selectmen and the Finance Committee in early February.

The town has about $1.7 million in free cash which Dunham said is substantially less than similar communities on the Cape.

“Every year as part of my budget process I do a review of what I think are the five most similar towns and I think we are over $2 million below what their free cash limit amounts are,” Dunham said. “In Sandwich, that is how we do our budgets. We budget very tight to what we have available and it is what we are used to.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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