NORTHAMPTON — Residents will have a chance to weigh in on the mayor’s proposed $106.2 million budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 at a public hearing during a City Council meeting Thursday evening.
Mayor David J. Narkewicz said Tuesday the spending plan, which totals $106,227,661 and is up 2.5 percent from the current year, reflects rising costs and a focus on capital investments.
“Things go up,” Narkewicz said. “I’m hopeful the City Council will adopt what I believe to be a reasonable budget to provide the resources our city departments and schools need.”
The budget calls for tax revenue of $59,204,031, an increase of $2,671,867, or 4.7 percent, from the figure budgeted for this year.
The council will consider the budget, which covers all school and city operations, and hear from residents when it meets in the City Council chambers of the Puchalski Municipal Building at 7 p.m. Thursday. The hearing is set to begin at 7:05.
The new budget must be in place by June 30, the last day of the 2016 fiscal year, following two votes by the City Council.
In accordance with the city’s charter, the City Council may make cuts to the budget but may not increase it.
The proposed budget was presented by Narkewicz May 17, exactly 45 days before the budget takes effect, as the charter requires. It consists of the city’s $89,946,013 general fund budget, up 1.7 percent from the current year, and four enterprise funds for water, sewer, solid waste and stormwater. When combined, the enterprise funds total $16,281,648 and raise the budget by 2.5 percent when added to the general fund.
The budget will extend by three years the $2.5 million override implemented to close the funding gap for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2013. The override was projected to last until fiscal 2017, but Narkewicz said the city will stretch the funding to fiscal 2020.
“I made a compact with voters,” Narkewicz said of the override that was passed in 2013. “The city wouldn’t spend the entire $2.5 million of new revenue all at once, but use it to stabilize the budget and put the rest into a fiscal stability fund to make it last over several years.”
Funding to the Forbes Library will increase by $38,464 under the mayor’s proposed budget, totaling $1,236,102. An additional $100,000 will be provided for a climate control system to accommodate the library’s special collections.
Since he was elected, Narkewicz said his administration has asked the library to provide more details about its expenses for budget consideration.
The Forbes Library board of trustees filed a complaint against the city in May, requesting a judge to declare that the library and its trustees exist separately from the city’s government.
State funding to Northampton public schools and Smith Vocational Agricultural High School could increase after the city’s budget is passed.
According to the mayor, Gov. Charlie Baker’s proposed budget would increase unrestricted local aid but offers little when it comes to increasing education funding for minimum-aid districts such as Northampton.
The governor’s budget would decrease state aid, but Narkewicz said he is hopeful the Legislature will increase education funding as they debate the state budget. In that case, the city would appropriate the additional resources to Northampton schools in July.
In an effort to generate new sources of revenue, the proposed budget provides $100,000 to the city as part of an agreement with New England Treatment Access, the operators of a medical marijuana dispensary on Conz Street.
The city will continue seeking participants in the Northampton Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program, a way to generate voluntary payments from the city’s tax-exempt property owners. The funds received would supplement next year’s capital improvement budget.