Shutesbury vs. Leverett: Round Two

At first glance, the current budgets of Shutesbury and Leverett look very similar. There are many of the same primary categories:  Public Safety/Protection of Persons & Property, Education, Public Works/DPW, and Culture and Recreation. The total budget amount is also similar:  $6.63 million for Shutesbury and $6.54 million for Leverett. For both towns, the budget request amounts for the categories just described are similar.

There are other expense categories where the two towns diverge. Debt, General Government, and Miscellaneous are three areas where there are stark differences. Another area of interest is the amount in each town’s cash reserves.

Let’s take a look at each section side by side and compare.

General Government

General Government is the first category listed on each town’s budget and encompasses the salaries and expenses associated with Town Hall employees, boards and committees. For Shutesbury, the requested amount for fiscal year 2022 was $563,704; for Leverett, $357,419. 

That’s a whopping 37% higher cost for Shutesbury’s General Government than Leverett’s. Where is that $206K hidden?

Here are some of the expense categories/departments where there are large differences in the budgets of Shutesbury compared to Leverett:

• Selectboard: $37,745 v. $28,679;

• Town Administrator: $68,763 v. $88,849;

• Finance Committee reserves: $75,000 v. $40,000;

• Assessors: $58,959 v. $49,425;

• Treasurer: $52,446 v. $32,492;

• Collector: $47,968 v. $28,976;

• Town Counsel: $15,000 v. $6,000;

• Land Use Clerk (Shutesbury only): $15,126;

• Town Buildings: $57,152 v. $72,176 (added together from several departments);

• Other General Government (Shutesbury only): $19,742

These items account for about half of the $206,000 difference between the two budgets. It should be noted that in the case of the Finance Committee reserve fund, any leftover money is moved to Free Cash at the end of the fiscal year. 

There are many other categories in which Shutesbury budgets more than Leverett; I chose to highlight the ones with larger amounts in an effort to identify why there is such a disparity between the towns’ budgets.

It appears that Shutesbury is more generous with salaries, stipends, and expenses than is Leverett. This is not necessarily a bad thing--but it does cost money, and lots of it.

Miscellaneous 

Shutesbury’s funding in the Miscellaneous category far exceeds that of Leverett: $1,077,620 compared with Leverett’s $466,764. 

A cursory look identifies two hefty expenses for our town: Health Insurance, at $520,000, and County Retirement, at $237,000. Comparable expenses for Leverett show $136,000 for the former and $112,918 for the latter.

These two categories alone cost Shutesbury taxpayers over $500,000 more every year than they cost the taxpayers in Leverett.

There are other large expenses. Shutesbury’s Medicare tax, listed as $42,064, is much larger than Leverett’s $9,904, while its OPEB (Other Post-Employment Benefits) fund contribution is a huge $50,000 while Leverett’s is a mere $10,000. Town insurance will cost Shutesbury taxpayers $68,000 this fiscal year, compared with $41,000 for Leverett’s citizenry. And there is also the annual taxpayer contribution to Shutesbury’s Library Building fund, in the amount of $25,000.

Can Shutesbury reduce any of these expenses? For instance, could we get a better deal on employee health insurance? With this type of expense rising every year, this issue deserves consideration.

Correction: A reader noted that health and other insurance costs are listed in both Miscellaneous and the Education categories in the Leverett budget. When totaled, insurance costs level out between the two towns. Education costs in Shutesbury, however, become much higher--but that's a subject for another day.

Debt

Leverett shoulders a heavy debt load compared to Shutesbury:  $380,259 for fiscal year 2022. The interest portion of that debt amounts to $72,759. By contrast, Shutesbury currently owes $20,435 in Water Pollution Abatement Trust loans to aid homeowners with failed septic systems, as well as $2,000 in short-term notes.

In 2012, Leverett voted to take out $3.6 million in long-term bond debt in order to pay for its broadband network, which likely accounts for its higher debt load. 

Though less debt is generally a good thing, Leverett’s debt load is far lower than the state’s limit of 5% of equalized values, i.e., the total value of all property in a city or town. Currently, Leverett’s percentage sits at .13%.

Next time, we’ll take a look at each town’s Reserve Funds: how they differ, how they arrived at their current levels, and how those levels affect taxpayers and town finances.