Budget Revealed, March 30, 2023

Thursday, March 30, 2023

Budget presentations conclude

Council to deliberate, possibly adopt budget next week

The City Council concluded its departmental budget presentations on Wednesday, March 29, with an overview of the Community Services proposed budget, which is briefly summarized below.

Ahead of the March 29 meeting, City Manager J. Michael Joyal, Jr. provided the City Council with the following documents, all of which are posted to the FY2024 Budget Revealed webpage:

FY2024 suggested general fund adjustments;
FY2024 grant-funded positions and projected future fiscal year general fund costs;
FY2024 proposed new positions categorized by funds (e.g., general fund, grant funds, special revenue funds);
Ten-year history of the statewide education property tax (SWEPT) and state adequacy aid grant.

Next week, on Wednesday, April 5, the City Council will hold a workshop for general budget review. If at the end of the workshop the Council is ready to adopt its fiscal year 2024 budget, it will hold a special meeting immediately following the workshop. If it doesn't adopt a budget on April 5, the City Council will adopt a budget at its April 12 regular City Council meeting.

The public may contact the City Council about the budget anytime by emailing CityCouncil-All@dover.nh.gov. Residents, business owners and taxpayers may also speak about the budget during Public Forum at the April 5 workshop and at the budget adoption special meeting

The proposed FY2024 budget, videos of the departmental budget presentations, along with associated documents such as presentation slides, are available on the FY2024 Budget Revealed webpage.

Community Services

John Storer, Community Services Director

Community Services' proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 totals $30,896,468, a $1,114,763 increase, or 3.7%, across all funds.

The budget includes expenditures from the following funds:

General Fund: $10,282,388, an $560,680 increase, or 5.8%.
Residential Solid Waste Fund: $1,951,210, an increase of $137,231, or 7.6%. This is a special revenue fund generated by the purchase of trash bags and tags that help pay for trash collection and Recycling Center operations.
Water Fund: $7,166,833, an increase of $114,469, or 1.6%. This is an enterprise fund generated from water-use fees appropriated for drinking water operations and maintenance, water main replacement and other water-related capital projects.
Sewer Fund: $10,162,954, an increase of $226,725 increase, or 2.3%. This is an enterprise fund generated from sewer-use fees appropriated for sewer operations, including the wastewater treatment plant, sewer replacement and other capital projects.
Fleet Maintenance Fund: $1,333,083, an increase of $75,658 or 6.0%. This is an internal service fund other departments with city vehicles contribute to for vehicle maintenance, repair and replacement.

Community Services has 75 full-time equivalents in seven divisions:

Facilities, Grounds and Cemeteries
Engineering
Highways and Drainage
Solid Waste and Recycling
Utilities
Administration
Fleet Services

Those seven divisions are broken into 15 budgeted cost centers consisting of administration, engineering, streets and sidewalks, snow removal, stormwater, street lighting, facilities and grounds, government buildings, public cemeteries, and recycling management, residential solid waste fund, water fund, sewer fund, wastewater treatment plant, fleet maintenance fund

Continued Fiscal Year 2024 objectives of the Community Services include:

Customer-focused;
Capital Improvement Program projects successfully completed and efficiently managed;
Workforce recruitment, development and management;
Embracing technology and innovation.

Community Services' budget begins on page 447 of the FY2024 Proposed Budget Book, which can be viewed here.

BY THE NUMBERS

A summary of appropriations for

the City portion of the budget

The single largest component is the Personal Services section of the budget. The total increase in the Personal Services section of the General Fund budget represents $1,809,583 or 5.7%. Other operational costs make up a decrease of $227,484 or -1.7%. These two components make up departmental operations and maintenance with a net increase of $1,582,099 or 3.5%.

The next single largest component is Debt Service, with an increase of $511,891 or 8.2% for this proposed budget. Capital Outlay has an increase of $142,061 or 3.0%.

The table below shows the components of City appropriations.

An in-depth discussion of cost drivers for each section of the city portion of the budget is included in the Fiscal Year 2024 Proposed Budget, beginning on page 15 of the detailed budget document and page 9 of the FY2024 Budget Summary document. Both are available here.

DID YOU KNOW?

The fiscal year and the budget

The City's fiscal year begins on July 1 of each year and ends the following June 30. The City's budget process begins each fall with the Capital Improvements Program (CIP). All capital spending of $25,000 or more for items with useful lives of three years or longer is included in this budget. Based on the City Council's financing policy, items are identified for bonding, appropriation in the annual operating budget or other types of financing. The City Council adopted the six-year CIP plan and authorized appropriations and bonding for fiscal year 2024 projects at its Oct. 26, 2022 meeting.

Items identified for the annual operating budget are included in the City Manager's proposed annual budget. Departments are responsible for submitting their annual budget request to the City Manager. After reviews with the departments, the City Manager makes any final adjustments to his proposed budget. The City Manager's proposed annual budget for the next fiscal year, including the School Board request, is due annually to the City Council by February 15. (In previous years, the deadline was April 15; however, the City Council updated the budget schedule through an ordinance change in August 2022.)

The City Council may add to, or cut from, the Manager's proposed annual budget by majority vote; however, the City Council must pass the budget by April 15 after separate public hearings for the City and School budgets. The budget becomes effective July 1. If the City Council does not adopt the budget by April 15, the City Manager's proposed budget takes effect July 1.

After the original budget is adopted, the City Manager may make appropriation transfers within a non-school department or transfer between non-school departments with City Council approval. After initial adoption, the City Council may amend the budget by a two-thirds vote.

The annual budget process is detailed in each proposed budget. Find it on page 7 of the Fiscal Year 2024 Proposed Budget and page 3 of the Fiscal Year 2024 Proposed Budget Summary, both available here.

BUDGET RESOURCES

Want to know more? In addition to the online resource for this fiscal year's budget, check out Budget Revealed for more information about the budget process, including previous budgets, insight into the budget cycle, and additional multimedia content.

Click on the image below to view:

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