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What Is the City's Budget for Next Year?
Not big on budget discussions? That's OK. Here are five takeaways from the city's new fiscal 2013 budget.
Did you attend the City Council public hearing on the Fiscal 2013 budget? Don't worry, we have you covered! Here's what you missed...
1) The City Council approved a General Fund budget of $104,537,695.52.
2) The School Department budget is 49,184,366.00 (47 percent of the General Fund). The Police Department budget is $8,606,155.42 (8.2 percent of the entire city budget). Fire is $5,715,591.37 (5.4 percent).
3) The City Council removed $28,000 from the School Department budget. That money would have been used to pay for upkeep of the former Clapp School.
4) The City Council removed a "Manager of Information Systems" job from the budget. Aldermen voted 6-3 to eliminate the new position. Meanwhile, a "Wellness Recreation Director" was added to the budget, despite concerns from four aldermen.
5) The entire Fiscal 2013 budget is $121,607,130.89.
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Earnhardt
7:27 am on Friday, June 15, 2012
And the School dept, kind of "cooked" the books to keep the funding for the Clapp. I guess its important to save an oudated building. The folks in that neighborhood were sold a bill of goods. But thats how all Woburn Govt works, Tell em what they want. then blow them off after.
charles
9:19 am on Friday, June 15, 2012
Was not happy the way the school dept. handled the Clapp School monies. It just shows they have extra monies buried in the budget. The bigger question is how much is it going to cost us in taxes? Two years in a row that our taxes are going up. Not good...
Sgt Thomas
10:07 am on Friday, June 15, 2012
I just found out that a portion of the Central Square Fire Station is closed due to mold. Well, the building is over 100 years old. Maybe they can spare some money they will be spending on the 30 year old police station roof and put it into the fire station. Just a thought.
Earnhardt
10:14 am on Friday, June 15, 2012
Well Sarge, the problem is as soon as they have a little extra cash, the Mayor seems to stick that hand out. Of course first everyone would have to ADMIT that they had some extra cash.. It's kept a big secret. Until they need something, Like to keep an empty shchool maintained, then the cash appears. How can the school comitte justify supporting an empty school? swing space? byt the time its needed for that, it will require at least 100 k to get back into service.
dan
6:26 am on Saturday, June 16, 2012
The City Budget goes back to Woburn Patch’s 2012 New Year question. Spending was the top priority rather than managing the City Budget with the tax income on hand.
According to the school department there were employees on the payroll because of the Federal ED Jobs Grants that was not being renewed this year. 60% of the money for the Federal Ed Jobs Grants was borrowed by the Federal Government and Woburn residents have to pay for those funds in the future. Just like the private sector when faced with loss of income, Woburn’s government officials should have made the difficult decisions to reduce the workforce and the remaining workers should take up the slack, like the private sector have to do, until more revenue comes into the city. With a decline in income, Woburn residents have to make the difficult decision in their households, this selfish grab for more money by the city government is an addition burden to Woburn residents.
By Woburn government leaders merging departments it would give good leaders the additional funds necessary to keep the City from falling apart without wasting tax dollars. For example, years ago, merging all cities building into a real estate department could have kept many of the schools up to building code safety. In addition, merging departments would give school professionals more time to educate our children rather than managing the school real estate.