Boxborough FinCom Questions $3.2 Million Free Cash Certification, Eyes Pension Fund

BOXBOROUGH -- October 1, 2024, Boxborough Finance Committee scrutinizes $3.2 million free cash certification and a $13 million unfunded pension liability. At the October 1 meeting, Finance Director Mike Gowing presented the state-certified free cash figure, derived from roughly $4.8 million in account balances reduced by receivables and $900,000 in deferred revenue, while committee members flagged unexplained underspends in health insurance, vocational transportation, mosquito control, and tipping fees. Chair Maria Neyland said she could only account for about $2.2 to $2.5 million of the figure from the bottom up: "What I'm worried about is that someday, somebody's going to knock on the door and say, garbage in, garbage out." Gowing separately disclosed the town's total pension liability stands at approximately $13 million, held by Middlesex County with no dedicated investment reserve, and proposed the committee consider seeding a pension fund with $1 million in free cash, analogous to the town's $1.8 million OPEB investment account. The committee also reviewed draft special town meeting language to move cemetery perpetual care and other trust funds into the prudent investor standard, directed Gowing to clarify which funds would be affected before routing the article to the Select Board, and received an update on the Fire Station Building Committee's evaluation of four candidate properties at 72 Stow Road, 700 Mass Ave, 975 Mass Ave, and the original station site.