By Alice Waugh
Lincoln residents will gather on March 23 to vote on 41 warrant articles on matters ranging from the town budget for fiscal 2014 to citizens’ petitions on leaf blowers and water fluoridation.
The town’s total budget request for fiscal 2014 is $33.09 million, an increase of 4.6 percent over this year. If all elements of the budget are approved, the median property tax bill would rise from $11,340 in fiscal 2013 to $11,815 in the next fiscal year—an average increase of $475, or 4.2 percent.
Proposition 2½ limits annual property tax increases to 2.5 percent, but this does not include previously approved debt service or increases permitted by growth in the town’s tax base. For fiscal 2014, the budgeted tax increase under Proposition 2½ is 2.4 percent. Property taxes will supply just over 72 percent of the town’s revenue.
Voters will also be asked to approve a new five-year bond totaling $860,000 to pay for a fire suppression system in the town library. That measure requires a two-thirds majority at Town Meeting to approve the borrowing and a simple majority at the polls on March 25 to approve the Proposition 2½ debt exclusion. However, total debt service for the year is projected to drop from $1.24 million to $1.17 million.
Also in the budget is $147,495 in cash capital expenditures (warrant article 9) for public safety items including three police cruisers, refurbishment of a fire engine, a hybrid SUV and lighting protection for the Department of Public Works, town information technology purchases, repairs and maintenance as well as increased security measures for the schools, and Phase 1 of a sidewalk on Library Lane. The largest single budget item in this category is $217,183 for furniture, fixtures and other equipment for the renovated town office building, which is expected to reopen in June.
Another budget request whose dollar amount is still unknown is for architectural and engineering studies of facilities needs at the Lincoln School. If the Massachusetts School Building Authority had given a thumbs-up for the town to proceed with its modified L-shaped proposal for renovating and rebuilding the school, that request under warrant article 10 would have been $400,000. However the MSBA recently rejected that proposal, so town officials will submit a smaller request as they begin the process of coming up with a new project that they hope will win approval by town residents as well as the the state.
Everything under discussion can be found on the Town Meeting web page, including the Finance Committee report detailing how every dollar will be collected and spent, a list of all 41 warrant articles to be voted on, the town’s annual report for 2012. The Finance Committee report, warrant articles and a glossary of terms are also available as a single PDF.
Community Preservation Act funding
If warrant article 15 is approved, the town will appropriate a total of $976,950 for 11 Community Preservation Committee (CPC) requests. The CPC is charged with allocating funds that are collected from a 3 percent surcharge on real estate tax bills as mandated by the Community Preservation Act (CPA), which was approved by Lincoln residents in 2002. The amount raised by the CPA surcharge is matched to some extent by the state; in fiscal 2013, Lincoln expects a 20 percent match, though the amount for fiscal 2014 is not yet known.
CPA funds can be used for expenditures related to open space, preservation of historic structures, community housing (defined as low to moderate income housing), and recreation. The 11 projects recommended for funding by the CPC for fiscal 2014 includes $326,425 for debt service on the town office building restoration, $182,000 to rebuild the Codman wading pool, and $112,570 for Bemis Hall brickwork.
Citizens’ petitions
Also on the warrant are citizens’ petitions asking for a working group to study noise and air pollution from leaf blowers, a question on whether the town water supply should continue to be fluoridated, and a request to service beer and wine at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum. In the coming days, on the Lincoln Squirrel will examine some of these warrant articles in more detail.