The Seabrook Town Warrant 2020
The Seabrook Board of Selectmen have finalized the 2020 Town Warrant, which is now posted. The Town Deliberative Session will be on February 4 at 7:00 p.m. at the Seabrook Community Center. The Town election will be on March 10.
I have provided the Board of Selectmen with an analysis of the data contained in the Warrant. The analysis contains a breakdown of requested articles and FY 2020 tax impacts by department. The full memo is attached below. The summary, without the departmental spending, is directly below:
This memo will provide the raw data associated with the 2020 warrant, and will break down that data by department. While there are several ways to look at these numbers I have chosen to examine the articles in the context of the 2020 tax impacts. After the election I will produce the annual capital report which will highlight other facets of capital spending.
The total of requested warrant articles in 2020 is $3,079,656. This is a reduction of $2,910,469 from the 2019 warrant requests of $5,990,125. That is a significant reduction, based on the Board effort to stabilize capital spending, and frankly having addressed some major capital spending needs in prior years. The number should be further reduced by $143,727, the amount sought for reauthorizing water exploration money that had been prior approved, with that source of funding being the water capital reserve. Once that prior appropriation is removed the number requested for this year dips to $2,935,929. As we examine the 2020 numbers our focus will be on the FY 2020 tax impacts, so we will, for this exercise, focus on one year, and show future tax impacts separately.
Other items of note include the fact that the Police number includes $100,000 that comes from a citizens article. The overall warrant contains $165,000 in funding capital accounts that are pre-payments on future capital obligations. Additionally the Police request for radio equipment through bond financing is funded through the newly created communication revolving fund. There will be no taxpayer impacts, in FY2020, or into the future, as that revolving fund derives its funds from lease payments made to Seabrook by Verizon (Police/Fire Tower) and by T-Mobile (Water Tower Lease.) New personnel costs included in these numbers are $190,492. Those would rise in following years.
The tax impacts for FY 2020, if all requested articles are passed, would be $1,309,822.