Billerica Select Board Passes $208 Million Budget 3-2 Amid Salary Dispute

BILLERICA -- March 4, 2024, Billerica Select Board passes $208 million FY25 budget 3-2, forwarding it to the Finance Committee with key personnel positions still contested. Town Manager John Curran presented a general fund budget of nearly $192 million, a 10.4 percent increase over the current year, driven by a $5.9 million school spending increase, $2.8 million in shared cost growth, and a $713,000 jump in the waste management contract. A third-party audit by CliftonLarsonAllen revealed that Billerica Public Schools had drawn down federal COVID-era reserve funds from roughly $2 million in FY21 to $5.2 million in FY24 to cover recurring operating costs, leaving reserves near zero and producing a structural deficit that Superintendent Kristan Clary, hired in July 2023, inherited. Clary told the board her level-service budget request of approximately $84.4 million was trimmed to $82,845,000 in the town's proposal, a 7.65 percent increase, and that the $1.648 million gap would go before the School Committee on March 12. Selectmen George Rosa and Michael Burroughs voted no, with Rosa objecting specifically to a new $160,000 finance director position he argued duplicates duties already assigned by charter to the town manager and town accountant, and a $140,000 deputy DPW director position he called unnecessary given the town's financial pressures.