The Programs & Services Committee convened last Wednesday night in a discussion of four departmental budgets: City Clerk, Newton History Museum, Newton Free Library, and the Parks, Recreation and Culture Department.
With respect to the City Clerk’s budget, the committee learned there was a fifty percent decrease in staff at the City Clerk’s Office.
Carol Moore, Clerk to the City Council, noted that COVID-related stress and burnout contributed to some turnover in the past fiscal year resulting in “two open positions.”
She attributed the turnover to the “stress level” of the positions and a need for “more training and support, more pay, and a flexible schedule.“
The Clerk’s Office recently docketed a new online code-management system, so this year’s budget includes an $11,000 cost increase in software maintenance, and reflects an uptick in cost of election management and election worker pay, resulting in a total budget increase of 4.6%,
Although new tabulators are expected to be ready for the September Primary to help the election run smoothly, the Area Council elections present some issues including communication, polling location issues (Area Council boundaries may not align with polling locations), and a need for additional poll workers, plus the cost for additional printing and certification of nomination papers.
The proposed FY24 budget of $2,320,707 for the City Clerk’s office was approved unanimously.
Lisa Dady, director of the Newton History Museum, presented the second budget of the night – for Historic Newton, which increased 2.76% from FY23. The budget consists of 45% funding from the City ($324,000) and 55% from Historic Newton (estimated at $420,00–$430,000).
Some new projects include “a sign-posting project around various locations around the city and a documentary about education reform in Newton,” said Dady.
Historic Newton has also received $200,000 in ARPA funds from the Mayor’s office for the refurbishment of the general Newton history exhibit at the Jackson Homestead, which is gradually flooding. An additional $75,000 was granted by the Community Preservation Committee to help shore it up.
“We got a lot of great advice over the last couple years on water infiltration problems. The firm we’re working with is going to bring this down to a menu of options and attach actual costs to them, and that will help us understand what we can do down there.” Dady said.
With that, the budget was unanimously approved.
The evening continued with a discussion on the Library budget, presented by director Jill Mercurio.
“Our FY24 budget increased 3.92% from the previous year and will allow us to maintain our accreditation with the Mass Board of Library Commissioners – that’s really important because it allows Newton residents to borrow materials from any library in the state and it also helps us receive state grants.”
Mercurio noted that most of the FY24 budget goes to personnel, as it allows for the fulfillment of union contracts.“This fall we signed an MOA with a union that allowed us to move back to a four department structure.” Mercurio said. This brings the total FTE count down by two, with an 8% increase in salaries due to COLA and other adjustments.”
The library’s aging HVAC system, which celebrated its 32nd birthday in 2023, will be serviced with additional City funds.According to COO Jonathan Yeo, solar has been helping with costs. “The challenge right now is that their HVAC system is struggling, and it’s just not as efficient anymore. We’re hoping to go all electric there in the future and get off of gas.”
The Committee voted unanimously to approve the budget.
The final budget of the night was that of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Culture – presented by its director, Nicole Banks.
Banks began with a disclaimer.
“Our budget, the way it appears in the budget book, is showing a 10% budget increase, and that is not really the actual budget increase. We have two waste collection specialists who have been transferred from the DPW, and we have a Big Belly contract, which is our trash receptacle contract, and we have a contract for pet waste bins, which are the blue bins out in all the parks in our open spaces.”
Banks pointed out that the department’s budget utilizes revolving funds to provide its services – which can mean an injection of significant amounts of money – but urged Councilors not to worry that money is being lost. .
“Each budget season, we make a budget estimated request to cover all of our expenses for anything that is operating through those revolving funds, and we never want to be short on our requests, but any funds that aren’t extended stay in the revolving funds. There’s no fear of losing that money or having the money reallocated.”
The revolving funds help to provide for upkeep of the Gath Pool, Crystal Lake, Levingston Cove, Community Gardens, and Newton’s athletic fields.
The $15 million in non-budgeted funds that went into fields and pool projects, said Banks, “supports our schools and our community residents.”
She added that the Mayor has more than tripled funding for field maintenance.
This budget was unanimously approved.
Andrey Sankanich is a sophomore at Newton North High School.
