What the Massachusetts Department of Revenue says about so called Free Cash".
Free cash is a revenue source that results from the calculation, as of July 1, of a community's remaining, unrestricted funds from its operations of the previous fiscal year based on the balance sheet as of June 30. It typically includes actual receipts in excess of revenue estimates and unspent amounts in
departmental budget line items for the year just ending, plus unexpended free cash from the previous year. Free cash is offset by property tax receivables and certain deficits, and as a result, can be a negative number.

The DLS certification protects communities from relying on free cash that might not materialize due to inaccurate local estimates.
The Technical Assistance Bureau (TAB) recommends that communities understand the role free cash plays in sustaining a strong credit rating and encourages them to adopt policies on its use. Under sound financial policies, a community strives to generate free cash in an amount equal to three to five percent of its annual budget. This goal helps deter free cash from being depleted in any particular year, which
enables the following year's calculation to begin with a positive balance. To do this, the community would orchestrate conservative revenue projections and departmental appropriations to produce excess income and departmental turn backs.
Overall, TAB recommends that communities adopt a free cash policy that avoids supplementing current year departmental operations. By eliminating the expectation of additional resources later in the fiscal year to back-fill budgets, department heads will produce more accurate and realistic annual appropriation requests.

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"Saying the Town could pay the full amt. was out of line, in my opinion"

Could the above comment be one reason people do not attend town meeting? Is that why some wish a paper ballot at town meeting, so no one sees how you vote?

How is someone speaking their opinion or thought about an issue at town meeting out of line? Oh, I know, sometimes you have to be a team player, except when that does not jive with my opinion. Perhaps a better approach is after that was stated, get up and ask moderator for explanation or clarification. Better yet, stand up and state you disagree with the statement that the town has the funds to pay school assessment and then make your case. That is an approach right out of town meeting times. Town meeting is the legislative body of the town and all registered voters are allowed to attend and speak, their thoughts or opinions should not have to follow any "party line".

Interesting times on face book; critique a member of say, advisory committee, concerning their actions or statements in official capacity and that is a personal attack; criticize a resident stating their thoughts at town meeting and that is a personal opinion. Well now, we sure are in interesting times. Remember, if say, selectmen talk about being a team player, that is bad, but at town meeting, you need to be a team player.

Speak of interesting times, we here on Partridgeville Road are singing, we have some new drainage pipes going in. Seems like the highway superintendent has an interesting theory; before you spend thousands of dollars on paving a road, you replace/upgrade things under the road first, so you do not have to dig up a newly paved road to do it after the fact. What a concept.

We can have free lunch for all kids at all schools, if you wish to pay for it, as in increase in school funding.

What is "Free Cash"? Well, it certainly does cost to get it, your tax dollars come first and then they are "assigned or appropriated" to go towards certain things; paper, pens, salaries, heat, lights and on and on. At the end of the year (fiscal year or after June 30) what ever is left from those allocated dollars or if more dollars come in than expected, all of that equals so called free cash; in other words, not appropriated or assigned to any specific purpose. Technically, unassigned fund balance.
It varies from year to year.

Templeton Financial Trends:

OR Code	Municipality	Fiscal Year	Operating Budget	Certified Free Cash	Certified Free Cash as a % of the Budget
					%
294	Templeton	2014	12,824,569	-26,899	-.21%
294	Templeton	2015	13,300,921
294	Templeton	2016	14,527,767
294	Templeton	2017	14,799,467
294	Templeton	2018	16,723,853	1,042,588	6.23%
294	Templeton	2019	17,172,225	1,572,732	9.16%

Earlier today the Legislature’s Committee on Education released a sweeping school finance bill that would amend the state’s landmark Chapter 70 school finance law used to determine school aid and local contribution amounts for the Commonwealth’s cities, towns and school districts. The bill would update key factors in the foundation budget spending standard consistent with the recommendations of the Foundation Budget Review Commission and implement the changes over a 7 year period. The bill also proposes changes to the special education circuit breaker program, and would provide additional funds for charter school impact reimbursements and make changes to the school building assistance program.

The new bill is headed to the Senate where debate is expected within the next several weeks before the end of the Fall legislative session. The announcement in the State House library was attended by Senate President Karen Spilka, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and the House and Senate Chairs of the Committee, Senator Jason Lewis and Representative Alice Peisch. The bill was described as a consensus proposal.

The MMA is reviewing the bill and will provide more detailed analysis and guidance later in preparation for Senate debate.

AMHERST (WWLP) – Amherst and Pelham have rejected a proposal to regionalize their elementary schools.

The Amherst and Pelham Regional School District Planning Board announced in May that it would not regionalize the town’s elementary schools.

The final report has come out, and it found that regionalization had insufficient financial and educational benefits to Amherst and Pelham.
This means both Pelham and Amherst elementary school districts will stay separate.

Amherst and Pelham already share a middle and high school, as well as a superintendent, but not elementary schools.

Board members expressed disappointment and frustration with the state’s failure to keep its promise of reimbursing 100 percent of regional school district transportation costs.

“The main incentive for districts to regionalize here in western Massachusetts where we have smaller populations and we are looking for efficiencies is this reimbursement of transportation and it was very frustrating when we had to project what the savings would be and we couldn’t rely on that 100 percent transportation reimbursement,” Planning Board Chairman, Peter Demling said.

The board was trying to make this work since Pelham only has one elementary school, but they did not see them saving money.

Comparison Time; Gardner in pipeline to receive MSBA funding with a reimbursement of 60% (60 cents on dollar for eligible costs), a while back, when the city began the process, it was stated there would be 80%, but as it turns out, that is not the rate for the entire project, so, it will be interesting to see the final numbers for Templeton's new elementary school, when we went in with about 62% rate, what the actual reimbursement turned out to be.

GARDNER — The city will soon see its first school built exclusively for elementary students. The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) board of directors recently voted to approve a grant of up to $42 million for a project to replace Waterford Street School and Elm Street School with a new building to be located off Pearl Street.

The proposed building, which will house about 950 pre-K through grade 4 students in its 147,120-square-foot facility, is scheduled to open in the fall 2022.

Superintendent Mark Pellegrino said he is excited that the city had taken one more step in its long journey toward getting a new school.

“Anyone who’s seen the inside of Waterford Street School knows that that school has needed to be replaced for a long time,” he said. “Elm Street School, as well, is just not appropriate for elementary school kids.” Pellegrino said he was pleased that the funding would not interfere with the ongoing $1 million renovation project at Elm Street School, because the city already had plans for it. “The goal is to have (Elm Street School) as Gardner Academy down the road.”

Mayor Mark Hawke said the grant presented is a great financial opportunity for the city.

“The reimbursement is going to be around 60 percent of the total cost, so 60 cents on a dollar in order to build a new school — that’s one of the best deals going because we are at one of the highest possible reimbursement rates,” Hawke said. “It’s a giant step forward.”

Pellegrino said the grant would allow the city to build its first-ever school designed exclusively for elementary students. He said the other buildings used over the years as elementary schools had presented students and staff with some unique challenges.

“We had kids that, in order to use a urinal, had to step up on a stool,” Pellegrino explained. “Not exactly healthy or safe.”

Another consideration officials looked at before approving the grant was the class sizes in the two schools, according to Pellegrino.

“When the MSBA saw the size of the rooms we’ve been working with, they (saw) that they were really undersized for a classroom of about 20 to 25 kids,” he said. “In terms of today’s standards, we are just way behind the times.”

Hawke said the idea of a new elementary school designed specifically for elementary school students had been a long time coming in the city.

“If you talk to all of the academic professionals, they’ll tell you that reusing high school or even junior high school space is not adequately sized,” he said. “And trying to retrofit Elm Street School for 21st century technology is incredibly difficult. (A new school) will go a long way toward improving the city as a whole.”

School Committee member Jennifer Pelavin agreed that it was long past time for the city to have a brand-new building for its elementary students.

“It’s great that the (new building) will be built for kids that age,” she said, adding that the need for the new school has reached critical levels. “Neither Waterford Street School or Elm Street School was originally built for an elementary school, so there were a lot of accommodations that the School Department had to do over the years to kind of fit them to that size of child.”

Pelavin noted that Elm Street School, which had originally been built as a high school, was designed with teenagers in mind.

“So the heating systems and other things were in places that you wouldn’t have them in an elementary school, where kids could possibly get access to, so we had to build things around them to block them off,” she said. “And it’s overwhelming for kids to be in a building that’s so much bigger and built for someone bigger.”

According to State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, MSBA chairwoman, and MSBA Executive Director/Deputy CEO Jack McCarthy, one of the next steps is for the school district and the MSBA to enter into a Project Funding Agreement, which will detail the school project’s scope and budget, along with the conditions under which the district will receive the grant.

“Gardner students will soon have a beautiful new space, which will undoubtedly enhance and improve their ability to excel in the classroom,” McCarthy said.

Sounds familiar:
And it does not appear to be caused by changing from a town accountant (town employee) to an accounting service. Looks like there are a few towns that struggle with "good numbers"

ASHBURNHAM — The fiscal problems of the small town are being untangled slowly, and the cause is being found and attempts being made to make it right again.

There was more to the fiscal story that floated to the surface at a recent meeting about troubles the town had filing with the state to have their finances approved and free cash certified. The town has not yet filed its fiscal 2018 audit. This problem centers around a change in accounting software from Munis to VADAR.

During a recent meeting of the Board of Selectmen, member Leo Janssens asked, “Where we were once on Munis, would it be costly to go back to it?”

Chairwoman Rosemarie Meissner told him that she had asked and it would be expensive to return to Munis, software that provides data management for municipalities and school districts.

The town moved on from Munis to VADAR, which Selectman John Mulhall described as trading a Cadillac with all its bells and whistles for a Kia.

Meissner said she was quoted $800,000 to return to the Munis software the town had once used.

She explained that when the town was running Munis, it received a reduced rate for upgrades, but now the town would have to buy the brand new package, making it extremely costly.

Interim Town Administrator Douglas Briggs described the problems of switching from the Munis software program to the new VADAR program.

“When the changeover happened, some of the numbers to Munis went over to VADAR, and they changed, so the numbers weren’t the correct numbers,” he said. “What we would have to do is have somebody go back in under Munis and see what the number is. ... How do you do that when the number is gone?”

Briggs said he will contact Munis to find a solution to retrieving the numbers and how much it will cost.

Meissner wondered if they could return to Munis and what would it cost for a short period of time to maintain the VADAR system so records can be transposed correctly. Meissner said it should take about three months to assure the numbers have transferred correctly.

Meissner explained that the town shut off Munis on June 30, and there is no way to access it.

“We didn’t have a backup, nothing. We went into VADAR and we didn’t have the full package. We did not buy the upgraded model,” she said. “We got the bare-bones model.”

“So we went from the full-loaded Cadillac to the stripped-down Kia,” said Janssens.

Meissner told Briggs that he should “make that call” to find out what can be done to rectify the situation where numbers in the budget disappeared. She said it also may impact other things down the line.

Briggs took over as acting town administrator after Memorial Day and immediately discovered that the town needed to complete the 2018 audit. Though they have tried to reconcile numbers between the treasurer and accountant before July, they soon realized they would not be in time to get free cash certified. Briggs said the town is getting close on finishing up the fiscal 2018 budget. He said the auditor was also willing to do fiscal 2019. They are still trying to determine the price, but Briggs said he’s sure 2019 will go much easier than 2018.