Boxborough Finance Committee Plans Budget Votes, Flags ClearGov Delays

BOXBOROUGH — January 21, 2025 — Boxborough Finance Committee flags mid-year revenue gap, ClearGov delays, and regional school fiscal strain. At the January 21 meeting, Chair Tony Newton and five members reviewed a second-quarter dashboard showing a projected revenue shortfall of roughly $600,000 to $700,000, driven largely by lagging state aid and uncertain local receipts, while property tax collections tracked at approximately 50 percent of budget. The committee identified a debt-service recording error — interest only, rather than combined principal and interest — and directed Town Accountant Hongwa to correct the line in ClearGov. Town Administrator Mike presented a community services staffing restructuring that would consolidate roughly $54,000 in administrative support lines into a $30,000 operating line and an $18,000 warrant article for additional coordinator hours, drawing pushback from member Maria Nayland over long-term departmental coverage: "My biggest concern is that next year we come back with — okay, we've done this, but now we have to add a department assistant back in." The committee set January 28 as the date to begin voting smaller departmental budgets, contingent on ClearGov delivering a salary-versus-non-salary breakdown by week's end, with a final operating budget deadline of March 25. School Committee member Liz warned that the Acton-Boxborough Regional School District is "getting to that breaking point," with a $2 million budget cut in the current year and Acton's levy capacity likely exhausted — an outcome that could raise Boxborough's unconstrained school assessment significantly in fiscal year 2027.