Plympton department heads will be asked to produce two budgets this fall, one at level services and a second at 5% to 10% below that, Town Administrator Bob Fennessy told the Board of Selectmen on Sept. 15. He warned that the coming year will be “a big challenge.” A Proposition 2½ override was raised at the Finance Committee the night before but is “not on the table yet,” he said. The squeeze comes as the town plans to spend most of its ambulance fund, which usually helps offset salaries, on a roughly $414,000 replacement ambulance. The board also approved an audit contract that costs about 15% more than last year’s.
Fennessy laid out the budget process during his administrator’s report near the end of the 48-minute afternoon meeting. He said a department head meeting will be held around Sept. 24 or the following week. Each department will be asked first for a level-services budget, then for a second draft cut by 5% to 10%, “looking at keeping staff as much as we can, even with those cuts.”
He expects that some departments will not be able to get there. Many will say their budgets are almost all staff, he said, so staff is the only place left to cut. The goal is to bring the Finance Committee and the board a budget that “reflects the needs of the town as well as the monetary availability of the revenues coming in.”
Fennessy said the town is starting in a hole. Last year’s budget was balanced with money drawn from stabilization and free cash, and “that money’s not there anymore,” so the town begins this cycle “in the negative.” The Finance Committee discussed the possibility of an override at its meeting the night before, he said, but “the first thing we’ve got to do is actually look at the budgets and see what they come in at.”
Chairman Nathaniel Sides added another pressure point. The planned ambulance purchase “is going to take the majority of the ambulance fund, which we typically dip into to offset salaries,” he said. That money “may or may not be filled” again.
Fennessy will also ask every department to begin a five-year capital plan. It will list major purchases, which he described as roughly $20,000 or more with a useful life of at least five years, so the board can “know where we’re at and what’s coming down the road.” He said he has been through lean budget years before, including as a Selectman in Plainville before the town gained casino revenue, but expects this year to be tougher.
The fire department has arranged to buy a new ambulance from manufacturer Greenwood, Fennessy said. The unit was originally ordered for the city of Worcester, which backed out. The truck is not yet built. It will be sized for Plympton’s small fire station and could be delivered sometime after April 1. The base vehicle costs $384,698, and the total comes to about $414,000 once it is fitted out with stretchers and other equipment.
A new custom build would take about two and a half years, Fennessy said, and the company expects prices to rise 10% to 15% next year. The purchase will be paid for from ambulance receipts, but town meeting must first appropriate the money. Chief Cheryl Duddy arranged for the company to hold off on payment until town meeting acts, which saves the cost of a special town meeting.
Sides said the older of the town’s two ambulances, which is 12 or 13 years old, has “always been” underpowered, according to the Chief. It needs about $12,000 in repairs that the town will now avoid. “We’ll have a vehicle two years earlier than would otherwise be likely if we went through the normal procurement process,” Sides said.
Selectman Daniel Cadogan asked how much the town is saving compared with Worcester’s price. Fennessy said he did not know the exact figure but understood Duddy had negotiated a break on the base price. Cadogan said the town clearly needs the vehicle and that waiting two and a half years for a custom build “could negate the value of getting a new one to begin with.”
Sides said the purchase exposed two gaps. The Bylaw Committee will draft a bylaw, in time for town meeting, governing how the ambulance fund is accessed and spent. State law authorizes the fund, but the town has no local bylaw setting those rules. The purchase also “reinforces the need for a capital plan that we’ve sort of gotten away from having” since COVID, Sides said.
The board unanimously approved a one-year, $43,500 contract with Lynch, Marini & Associates to audit the town’s records, and authorized Fennessy to sign it. Fennessy said the final year of the firm’s previous three-year contract cost $38,500. Other town administrators told him the increase is “kind of the going price.” The firm also quoted a second year with another increase of $3,000 to $4,000. Fennessy recommended signing for one year only and putting the audit out to bid in early spring.
In an update that came up after the agenda was posted, Sides described last week’s Plymouth County Advisory Board meeting as “one of the more remarkable meetings I’ve ever participated in … and I don’t mean that in a good way.” Sides is Plympton’s delegate on the board, and Cadogan is the alternate. Each of the county’s 27 communities has a weighted vote, and Plympton’s share is 0.59%.
Sides said County Treasurer Tom O’Brien has sued the County Commissioners over a County Administrator’s contract. By Sides’ account, the commissioners advertised and interviewed for the job at a range just under $125,000, then agreed to pay the person they hired $185,000 without changing the budget. Sides said a county employee who, by all accounts presented at the meeting, had done nothing wrong was let go to cover the difference. “This smacks of classic, old-school, backdoor politics, cronyism, however you want to word it,” Sides said.
Sides disclosed that he has known the county treasurer for 50 years and that the two “frequently disagree.” He said he was comfortable the treasurer had exhausted all other options before filing suit. The case is now in court, and Sides said county taxpayers could face a contract buyout of up to half a million dollars. He urged residents to pay closer attention to county offices on the ballot.