Town Manager Proposes 2.3 Percent Budget Increase

TEWKSBURY, MA — Tewksbury Town Manager Richard Montuori has proposed a $127.1 million town and school budget for Fiscal Year 2023, which begins July 1.

That represents a $2.9 million, or 2.3 percent, increase over the current year's budget, $124.2 million.

The general fund budget excludes town meeting articles and enterprise fund budgets, which totaled around $20 million in recent years and over $24 million in Fiscal Year 2022, the current year. Those items will be covered at the annual town meeting in the spring.

Montuori asked department heads to submit level-funded budgets, with up to three top priorities, in his Nov. budget message. The majority of the budget increase goes to salaries.

The priority, he said in the message, was to fund debt service for a new Department of Public Works/School Maintenance Facility. The town plans to fund the building project without a debt exclusion, which means it would be within the levy limit and not raise taxes.

In 2019, town meeting voters approved $2.2 million to design the project.

Officials previously considered tearing down the existing Public Works building, but the current plan involves renovating the existing building, with an intended budget of $25 million.

"In October, we're going to need to ask town meeting to authorize the borrowing of the funds and if we borrow funds we need to have the debt service payments within the budget," Montuori told the Select Board.

The budget debt service for the project is $210,819.

All of the Fiscal Year 2023 budget documents are available here. The Select Board presentation is available here from TewksburyTV.

Christopher Huffaker can be reached at 412-265-8353 or chris.huffaker@patch.com.