Westwood officials: Budget woes on the way

It is early, but the town has begun to consider its fiscal 2011 budget, and one thing is clear: The numbers are not good.

In a budget update to selectmen, Finance Director Pamela Dukeman emphasized that whatever budget Westwood ultimately goes with for next year will follow the strict spending limits it already put in place for fiscal 2010, which began July 1.

"Every organization, every home, can squeeze down when they need to, and that's what we've done in the current year, to kind of not drive a wholesale reduction of staffing or programs," Dukeman said. "But to come back another year and try to do that again, the squeezing effect is really not there. So if we come back again for FY11 and we'd be looking to do another zero increase, we would not be able to meet that, at this point, without some serious reduction in services and staffing."

Dukeman began by recapping issues the town faced as it prepared its fiscal 2010 budget. As selectmen Chairman Philip Shapiro noted, "We're really in the same situation - with a whole series of unknowns as a result of the economy, as well as Westwood Station, and state aid, where we've still got all the uncertainties that we had last year."

Westwood is working with a $68.4 million budget for this year - or $1 million less than in fiscal 2009. The town and school sides of municipal government are working with the same budgets they had in fiscal 2009, and most employees received no salary increase this year.

Discussing a preliminary forecast for 2011, Dukeman said state aid would be a huge issue: "Will they reduce us? Will it be a reduced amount from FY10?"

Westwood ended with $4.3 million in state aid for fiscal 2010 - unless the state imposes mid-year budget cuts and reduces the town's amount even more - compared to $4.7 million in fiscal 2009.

Dukeman added that local receipts will be another revenue issue to watch - and that the town is "not scheduled to receive any payment" in fiscal 2011 from Westwood Station. "In the current budget, we're using $615,000 (from Westwood Station), so that's a big drop for us right away as we start off the budget," Dukeman said.

The town is due to receive $500,000 from Cabot, Cabot & Forbes if and when the developer finds construction financing for its stalled project, but Shapiro said, "it's fairly cut and dried - I don't think we can build anything into the budget from Westwood Station."

On the expense side for 2011, Dukeman reiterated that asking departments "to manage with a zero will be quite different doing it for a second year"; that the town needs to monitor the growth of health and pension costs; and that it needs to fund capital projects and reserves.

Giving some "preliminary parameters" for 2011, she said that upping spending by 1 percent for the schools and town departments would result in additional outlays of $325,000 and $145,000, respectively. A 10 percent increase in pension and health insurance costs would mean $690,000 in additional spending.

Selectman Nancy Hyde pointed out that every time the state comes up with their projections, they worsen immediately. She said Westwood needs to extrapolate from the state's figures over the past year and "have to be ahead of them" for 2011 planning, "because it just doesn't appear to me that they have a handle on this."

"Probably the best-case scenario at this point in time is if we could level-fund everything again," said Selectman Patrick Ahearn.

Daily News staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.