Musante attended the Budget Coordinating Group’s first fiscal 2013 planning meeting.
Amherst Town Manager John P. Musante returned to work Thursday. Select Board chairwoman Stephanie J. O'Keeffe is to his leftAMHERST – “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” Town Manager John P. Musante joked, paraphrasing Mark Twain, on his return to Town Hall Thursday morning.
Musante attended the Budget Coordinating Group’s first fiscal 2013 planning meeting. He was greeted with hugs and handshakes and said he was glad to be back.
Over the next three weeks, he said, “my intention is to work a couple hours a day in the office and a couple of hours at home.” He said he will y “ramp up incrementally back up to 24/7.”
Musante has been out since Sept. 6 after he fell while walking his dog. He was hospitalized until Sept. 11 and has been recovering at home.
He praised Finance Director Sanford Pooler for putting together financial projections and his presentation last week to finance and school committees, Select Board and Jones Library Board of Trustees. Musante was watching from home.
The meeting Thursday morning was a chance for members of the budget group - which includes members of the finance and school committees, Select Board and Jones Library Board of Trustees as well as department heads - to talk about budget projections, potential financial issues as well committee goals.
“I’m pretty comfortable with the projections,” Musante said of Pooler’s forecasted budget guidelines. Pooler is suggesting level services budgets with hikes of 2.8 percent.
He is expecting a 1.9 percent increase in state aid. “We’re used to having Draconian projections.” Last year Musante based his early fiscal 2012 budget on a 12.5 percent state aid cut.
Still a 2.8 percent hike for the schools will mean cuts, said Superintendent of Schools Maria Geryk. She said 80 percent of the school budgets is staff and costs rise. Teachers and administration have reached a tentative contract hike of 1.5 percent for the current and next fiscal year.
Robert Detweiler, director of Finance and Operations for the schools, said the schools are losing federal money that has been used to help balance the budget next year as well.
“We’ll look much more closely at the numbers in the next few weeks,” Geryk said.
Sharon Sharry, the town’s new library director, said she and the Jones trustee endowment committee, met with the library’s financial planners and the endowment is down.
She asked about whether the percentage of the endowment the library uses be reduced and whether there was a possibility of more town help.
The library uses typically about 5.4 percent of its endowment as part of the budget, that is comprised of state and town help as well as fundraising.