7548-R1_NewGloucester_2019-2020_AnnualReport_Web

ANNUAL REPORT Town Manager – Letter of Transmittal

To All New Gloucester Citizens,

I am pleased to report that we were able to add to the undesignated fund again at the conclusion of the last Fiscal Year. All savings are realized due to each department managing their perspective budgets in a deliberately conservative manner and also by the collection of revenue amounts above what was initially anticipated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The town collected $817,070 in intergovernmental revenues, of which $349,142 was from State Revenue Sharing. The Town ended the fiscal year with a Fund Balance of $4,101,202 . The Undesignated Fund ended the year at $3,757,719 . This robust ending to the prior Fiscal Year has shown that not only did we not have to tap into the Undesignated Fund, but we added a total net position value of $507,487 . The past 2020 fiscal year will go down in history as the Year of COVID-19. This brought with it a great deal of financial uncertainty, many additional expenses associated with cleaning materials, limited and/or absent stock inventories and increased cost for the needed supplies. We also held not one but four Elections in order to pass an acceptable Budget for the Town Library. This brought much angst, tension and hardship to the community and created a divide amongst the citizenship. While the Library Warrant Article was finally passed, it will take some time for some to recover from the emotional aspect of this controversial process. This leads in to the newly approved Warrant Article to approve a new Town Charter. This will be a new beginning for the Town of New Gloucester and a hopeful opportunity to put into place many much needed Ordinance refinements and Rules of Order for this expanding bedroom community. The turbulent past year of events should help guide the folks who join this very important committee in many much needed valuable discussions. This process will also be a time when the Town will have to carefully maneuver the path of compromise. The Stevens Brook Dam/Culvert project was on course to be installed but COVID-19 and personnel changes delayed the project by a year, it is now currently set into motion and will have a tentative completion time frame of late August, early September 2021. The ongoing failure of this culvert and associated fire pond will require dredging not only for fire protection, but also to also assure adequate oxygen levels for the annually supplied fish.

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