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REPORT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE Fiscal Year 2005 saw the Town of Abington move from a town administrator form of management to a Town Manager with clear authority and accountability for the operation of the town. The town voted to support building a new police station. The town also voted to accept the proposed plans to turn the Weymouth Naval Air Base into a mixed use development area. The space will be used for industrial use as well as housing a community of new residents to the area. The land will also have open space and recreational facilities for people who live on the base and for people who live in the surrounding communities. Fiscal Year 2005 saw some increases in the town's budget. The town has continued to expand the administrative operations of the town. Abington received excellent ratings from our annual audit. Our fiscal accounts are in good order, and the town has set up some very sound accounting practices. The treasurer's office along with the assessor's office have done excellent work retrieving property tax payments, and those efforts have helped solidify the financial foundation of the town. Fiscal Year 2006 that started on July, 01, 2005 sees the town in better fiscal shape than we have been in for many years. A lot of our service sectors are lean, but the departments have done the work with the staffing levels they have. The town continues to grow. New homes have been built. New condominiums units have been built. More and more of the available space in town is being developed. All of this development and growth puts additional strain on our local resources and governmental structures. As we move forward we need to focus more attention on staffing many of the departments in town and how we provide services and supports to our local community. Many of the buildings, equipment, and capital items need improvements and/ or need to be upgraded or replaced. The cost for maintaining what the town owns and what the town needs to service the community's demands and requirements will be expensive. We need to make a serious and sincere commitment to address our capital needs. This can be accomplished only by a multi-year program done in stages. The Town Manager sees this area as one of his priorities and will be developing a plan to address the demand incrementally based on what is needed most and what the town has the capacity to fund. The town also needs to pay attention to our stabilization fund. We need to put money aside for the next down cycle in the economy. We are not prepared to weather the next economic storm. Now is the time to put funds aside so we don't have to cut staff and services and scale back on the town's resources to meet the challenges of servicing the community when the economy loses momentum. We need to develop and implement a savings plan much as we are going to do to address the capital needs of the town. We need to be able to do the work we need to do in a most responsive and efficient way, and that be accomplished only when the town has the financial reserves to weather the down times. Meanwhile, change is the one constant we can all agree upon. We have lost valuable members of the Finance Committee, people who have served the town well and given of themselves and their time generously. We say thank you and good bye to Mr. Thomas Corbett and Mr. Adrian Griego. Tom was elected in this past local election to serve as one of our Selectmen. We hope someone like Adrian with his considerable skills and talents will consider service at some point in the future when he has less demands on his time and life. He was a wonderful asset to our work effort. We have been most fortunate to add new people to our ranks. Mr. Jack McLaughlin has stepped forward to offer us his time and talents. Mr. Jack Freeman has returned to the Finance Committee after a brief hiatus. During the past fiscal year the Finance Committee saw some changes and additions that bolstered our ability to serve the town. Mr. Chris Aiello offered to fill in for the vacancy left by Tom when he decided to run for elected office. Ms. Jen Oriola filled a vacancy and has offered us a fresh, new perspective on many issues we address. We pay special gratitude to Ms. Deb Libby, our recording secretary. She is going into her seventh year in this position. She is a stabilizing influence for all of us. She serves as our historian and our procedures expert. Her contributions to the work we do are immense. We also want to extend our special thanks to Ms. Theresa Maze who has agreed to serve another term. She has served the town well, and we are so pleased she has agreed to continue her stewardship for another three years. |
| Finance Committee - 2005 Annual Report |
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