Barnstable Officials Already Working on 2017 Budget

CCB MEDIA PHOTO Barnstable Town Hall.

CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Barnstable Town Hall.

HYANNIS – Barnstable officials are already digging into the fiscal year 2017 budget.

Barnstable Town Manager Tom Lynch said the first step in the process is determining how much of the budget goes to the schools before looking at evaluating capital projects.

“We’ve agreed over the past years to make 60 percent go to the schools and 40 percent go to the municipal side,” Lynch said. “Each week the school superintendent and I are talking about budget preparation issues.”

There have been over 120 capital projects submitted and are being evaluated.

“When the projects are scheduled for FY ‘17..and then ’18, ’19 and ’20, we’ll look and see what fits in,” Lynch said. “And make the tough choices of how much money we have and what are the real needs for this year.”

Lynch said deadlines are also approaching for departments and staff to submit their operating budgets.

Property tax revenues were strong again with other revenue sources which Lynch says points to a growing economy.

“You can see the rebound in the economy when you look at an increase in auto excise tax money and hotel and motel monies that come in,” Lynch said. “You can see that we had a good season in those revenues.”

Lynch said the town will make sure that there are enough revenues to cover union negotiations.

“This is also a year where we are going into negotiations with all our unions both on the municipal and school side,” Lynch said.

The town also has to account for a lack of revenues from Barnstable Municipal Airport after the shutdown of Island Air.

“They [used] a lot of fuel over there and for the next 6 months those revenues are not going to be a part of the budget,” Lynch said.

A joint budget presentation to town council and the school committee will be held on January 21.

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