Thursday, April 25, 2013
Co-sponsored by the Belmont League of Women Voters and the Warrant Committee.
Tonight at the Beech Street Center, the town's financial "watchdog" will be leading the public on a walk through the Warrant. The public and all Town Meeting representatives are invited to attend a Warrant briefing at 7 p.m. at the Beech Street Center, located at 266 Beech St. This annual event is co-sponsored by the town's Warrant Committee – which provides financial oversight to the Town Meeting – and the Belmont League of Women Voters Education Fund. It will be an opportunity to ask questions about any of the 30 plus Warrant articles – from Medical Marijuana to department budgets – prior to the start of the town's annual Town Meeting on Monday, April 29. The event began two years ago to help prepare Town Meeting with information prior …
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-71.18091
Belmont Council on Aging
266 Beech St, Belmont, MA
/articles/belmont-s-financial-watchdog-league-holding-warrant-preview
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/locations/9308446
Friday, December 14, 2012
Preliminary outlook predicts level spending for education, a two percent reduction for all others.
The first forecast for the coming budget season in Belmont is dreary with little chance of a sunny outcome. With the US and Massachusetts economies expected to bump along for the coming year without any real growth, town officials are predicting yet another year of the school and town departments requiring to hunkering down in the budget process with little in the way of relief from added commercial growth in Belmont or an increase in local aid from Governor Deval Patrick's administration. But while the initial outlook is dank, some see a glint of a silver lining as it could be far worse. On Wednesday, Dec. 12, Belmont Town Manager David Kale provided the Warrant Committee – the financial watchdog to the Town Meeting – with a preliminary …
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Nearly $185,000 in additional money in latest review of town finances. But it's one-time money that could pull the schools from a sea of red ink into the black.
The town's Warrant Committee did the equivalent of searching in-between the sofa cushions and under the driver's seat to find a bit more cash to help close the growing deficit facing the Belmont School District in the fiscal 2013 budget. In an exercise that showed both the fluidity of the town's budget process and how you can squeeze funding blood from the municipal turnip, Warrant Committee Chairwoman Elizabeth Allison and Laurie Slap, the Belmont School Committee's representative to the town's fiscal watchdog committee, announced that the latest figures from the town and assumptions of state monies could increase reoccurring revenue by approximately $200,000. But while the new number "is a positive and not a negative" in the words of …
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W. L. Chenery Middle School
95 Washington St, Belmont, MA
/articles/a-bit-more-revenue-for-town-to-play-with
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/locations/6594403
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Revenues right on schedule with expenditures running slight behind budget.
For the first half of the fiscal year, the Belmont budget is chugging along just fine, according to the town’s chief number cruncher. Town Accountant Chitra Subramanian presented the second quarter results to the Warrant Committee Wednesday night, Feb. 15, and said that, at least so far, there are “no surprises” in either revenue projections or expenditures for the first six months of the fiscal 2012 year. In fact, total receipts – which include tax revenue, all sorts of fees and state aid – came in at $40.9 million or 49 percent of what was budgeted while total operating expenditures – all the checks written out by the town – was at $37.0 million or 43 percent of the $85.8 million set aside at last year’s Town Meeting. In fact, the area …
42.38652
-71.17051
W. L. Chenery Middle School
95 Washington St, Belmont, MA
/articles/no-surprises-in-town-budget-in-first-6-months
157120
/locations/6390145
Friday, February 3, 2012
Financial watch dog gives OK to bond $53.7M, asks selectmen to negotiate with utility giant.
The last-minute insertion by energy giant NSTAR into the four-year debate on building a new electric substation has thrown a curve into the vote before the reconvened Special Town Meeting on Wednesday on the town’s largest capital project in decades. Representatives at the meeting Feb. 8 will not only be voting to approve a $53.7 million bond authorization to purchase land on Flanders Road and build the electrical substation, but will now allow the Belmont Board of Selectmen to negotiate with the electrical and natural gas utility monopoly on the continued use of the current electrical standard, the 13.8 kilovolt system. “It is a surprise that they came forward" with an offer, said Ralph Jones, chairman of the Light Board and Board of …
42.38652
-71.17051
W. L. Chenery Middle School
95 Washington St, Belmont, MA
/articles/last-minute-surprise-nstar-enters-substation-debate
157120
/locations/6311858
42.39531
-71.15736
25 Flanders Rd, Belmont, MA
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/locations/6311859
Friday, January 27, 2012
The "on spot" figure keeps the school department's deficit around $500,000 for fiscal '13.
Belmont Board of Selectmen Chairman Ralph Jones said he was "expecting level funding" in local aid from the state this budget cycle. And the state delivered, at least in the first estimates of the amount Belmont budget writers can expect from Massachusetts Governor Patrick's budget when it is released in the spring. Earlier this week, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue released its fiscal year 2013 local aid estimates and as the town, school department and Warrant Committee had predicted back in September, state aid is at the same dollar level as last year. In fact, Belmont comes out ahead by just over $8,000. FY '12 Cherry Sheet est. Looking a little deeper into the figures, Belmont saw a $5,813 drop on the education side of the …
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Belmont Town Hall
455 Concord Ave, Belmont, MA
/articles/town-recieves-cheery-cherry-sheet-estimate
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Waverly Watchdog
12:08 am on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Or, it might be way to save the ratepayers of Belmont some money. But saving Other Peoples' Money is not Mr. Bowe's thing. "But we should be very careful how we proceed in negotiations" with the company, said Brown, who worked in utility regulations. We should also be very careful of what Brown says. I would very much like to hear him explain why the BMLD is, and has been, exceeding the State … more ›