MELROSE — After several weeks of Appropriations and Oversight Committee hearings, the City Council unanimously voted to adopt Mayor Paul Brodeur’s proposed fiscal year 2023 budget on Tuesday, June 21.
The $95.26 million spending plan for the year that began Friday, July 1 represents an increase of about 4.7 percent over the allocation for fiscal year 2022.
The city’s schools will get about $35.5 million in city funds, up about $1.4 million from last year. The varied public works areas of the budget will see nearly $10 million. The Police Department’s budget for fiscal 2003 will be $4,657,560. The Fire Department will have about $$4.5 million to work with.
To view the city’s budget documents, including the budget itself, visit cityofmelrose.org/mayor/pages/city-budget-fiscal-year-2023.
Brodeur thanks the City Council, the Clerk of Committees Andrew Ghobrial and City Clerk Kristin Foote for their partnership and hard work throughout this process.
“Designing a thoughtful and thorough municipal budget is a collaborative effort,” said Brodeur. “I am especially grateful for the leadership of the School Committee and Superintendent (Dr. Julie) Kukenberger, city department heads and staff members who helped craft a balanced, fiscally responsible, and progressive economic roadmap for the coming year. I appreciate the City Council for taking the initiative for creating this year’s budget review process, which offered Department heads the opportunity to provide detailed information on their budget requests and capital needs.”
The Fiscal Year 2023 Budget continues to represent the budget model Brodeur hoped to present when he took office in 2019, in large part due to the invaluable guidance provided by the City’s Chief Financial Officer Patrick Dello-Russo and Assistant Auditor Kerri Golden, who relaunched the city’s dynamic and interactive budget dashboard that continues to enhance the accessibility to municipal finance in the city of Melrose.
The FY23 budget, in combination with strategic capital investments in the city’s parks, schools, infrastructure including roads and traffic safety, and diversity, equity and inclusion goals will continue to move Melrose forward in a positive direction. In addition, the city continues to invest in its Stabilization Funds to maintain its excellent AA+ Standard and Poor’s Bond Ratings.
