Take a peek at Lancaster's 5-year financial forcast

 

At last night's Select Board meeting there was more discussion about the Lancaster's "5 Year Financial Forecast."     That forecast document has not been publicly distributed in the past, but here's a copy if you're interested in taking a look.

 

 
At last night's Select Board meeting there was some continued discussion about the town's 5-year financial forecast.   Member Ralph Gifford wanted to set a goal of enhancing the utility of this forecast and distributing it with the town's budget book.

Many towns already include this forecast in their annual budget books, and I think it should be included in our annual budget book going forward. 

At the Select Board meeting on 6/3, during the discussion of the new master plan, Member Ralph Gifford initially wanted to set a goal of establishing 5-year financial forecasting per the DOR best practice and board chair Steve Kerrigan responded that the town already does have a forecast...he indicated that TA Kate Hodges and Cheryl Gariepy maintain it.  This was a surprise to many of us on the call who've never seen the document.

I filed a "Public Records Request" on June 10th and received a copy of the document on June 24th.

It's a rather basic summary budget, dated June 17th,  showing actual values from FY2020 through FY2023, the FY2024 budget values, and projected values for FY2025 through FY20230.   Last night TA Kate Hodges and Finance Director Cheryl Gariepy seemed to indicate it was created with an application provided by the state.

The "bottom line" totals are eye-popping but that's largely due to the Enterprise Fund section, which lists $2 million surpluses for the prior years but doesn't include any revenue for the projected years.   There's also a large contribution to the stabilization fund in FY2023...I don't remember if that really occurred before 6/30/2023.

Producing a forecast that can be regularly shared with the the town should be a priority:  it probably should have been provided as part of the request for approval of the school building debt and the levy limit override. 

Here's a link to a copy of that forecast.