Politics & Government

Westwood Receives $640K From State Aid

The revenue will be allocated to both the town's school and municipal budgets.

The town of Westwood will be receiving additional revenue from Massachusetts state aid of about $642,000 for Fiscal Year 2011, according to Westwood Finance Director Pam Dukeman.

Dukeman, who presented the amount to the Westwood Board of Selectmen on Monday night, said the state aid is a revenue source for the town's budget, and Westwood receives the aid in a number of a categories, the largest being Chapter 70, or educational aid.

"Throughout most of this year's process working on the FY11 budget, we were using a conservative estimate of a 10 percent cut to state aid for FY11 over FY10, based on the difficult state financial situation," Dukeman said in an email Thursday.

Find out what's happening in Westwoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"As we approached Town Meeting in the spring, it appeared that the State aid cut for FY11 would be 4 to 6 percent, not 10 percent," Dukeman added. 

Still, as the state budget hadn't been finalized by Town Meeting in May, Dukeman and the town kept with the original proposed budgets through town meeting, but did discuss with residents that when the state budget was finalized, there would most likely state aid coming into the town.

Find out what's happening in Westwoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Now, the state budget is finalized and the revenue to Westwood for FY11 will indeed reach $642,000. The Board of Selectmen this week voted to allocate the revenue with $548,000 for the school budget, and $94,000 for the municipal budget.

The Board also voted to hold on using 10 percent of the funds until the town proceeds further into FY11, when Board members will feel more comfortable that the state won't have further budget issues that might result in potential mid-year reductions.

The Board of Selectmen also said they are looking to touch base with the School Department in order to determine what the allocated money for the school budget will be used for.


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