Brunswick Budget and CIP Workshop - March 23, 2026
Brunswick Budget and CIP Workshop - March 23, 2026
The Brunswick Town Council held a budget and capital improvement program (CIP) workshop on March 23, 2026. Presentations were delivered by the Public Works Department, Engineering Department, and the Town Manager, covering departmental budgets, CIP projects, TIF financing, and overall municipal budget trends. The council discussed significant fiscal challenges, including declining non-property tax revenues and increased county costs, and set an informal, non-binding goal of approximately 4% overall tax rate impact.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Jennifer Navarro, Brunswick resident: Criticized the structural budget deficit, arguing that the use of TIF funds for general fund support weakens transparency and accountability. She warned that reliance on property tax increases as a backstop without structural reform will lead to escalating tax burdens and declining service value, and questioned the limiting principle for future tax increases.
Discussion Items
- Public Works Department (Director Larry Leighton): Presented operations including 150 miles of road, 40 miles of sidewalk, and 2,700 catch basins. The proposed FY27 budget shows a 5.88% increase over FY26, driven by wages, benefits, fuel, and de-icing materials. A key proposal is to reorganize the central garage into a Fleet Management Department, without adding new positions, to improve maintenance across all departments. Challenges include staff retention (most employees have less than five years of service), aging infrastructure, and rising construction costs. A new sidewalk machine is planned for purchase as part of the equipment reserve.
- Engineering Department (Town Engineer Trey Cruz): Highlighted a 4% budget increase primarily for professional services. CIP projects include Richard's Culvert replacement (construction funding needed), Sparwell Road culvert replacement and road realignment ($1M bond expected), and Noble Street reconstruction concept. Road maintenance: the town averages 5.3 miles paved per year versus a target of 7.4 miles. Proposed paving for FY26 totals 7.6 miles, including Main Street mill and fill (bids opening this week).
- Town Manager (TIF Presentation): Explained Tax Increment Financing (TIF) mechanisms under state statute, the five TIF districts, and the tax shift benefits (higher state aid to education, revenue sharing, lower county tax). The TIF budget shows $5.6M in revenues and $6.7M in expenditures, with the difference drawn from balances. Proposed transfers of $1.5M to the general fund were discussed, along with the trade-offs between capturing revenue in TIFs versus supporting the general fund. Councilors debated the balance of TIF use and its impact on the tax rate.
- Town Manager (Budget Trends Presentation): The preliminary budget shows a 3.94% tax impact before county adjustments. Non-property tax revenues are declining, and the county tax increased by $103K (0.61% additional impact). Expenditures are up 5.82%, with public safety the largest driver. The manager made $972K in adjustments, including reducing the paving reserve by $200K and funding four new firefighter positions for half a year. The council discussed setting a target for the overall tax rate increase and the need for structural changes.
- Council Discussion: Councilors expressed concern about the impact on fixed-income residents and the need to balance service demands with affordability. A majority supported an informal, non-binding target of a maximum 4% overall tax rate increase (including town, school, and county, net of new valuation). Councilor Weems suggested that achieving this would require approximately $1.3M in cuts or revenue increases on the municipal side and $1.5M on the school side. The council acknowledged the school department is still in its budget process and will provide formal feedback after the school board approves its budget.
Key Outcomes
- The council informally agreed to target a maximum overall tax rate increase of approximately 4% (including town, school, and county, net of new valuation). This guidance was non-binding and meant to shape the budget development process.
- The town manager will develop a sequenced priority plan to achieve this target, with recommendations for cuts or revenue increases on the municipal side.
- The meeting concluded with public comment and adjournment.
Meeting Transcript
Good evening, everybody, and welcome to the budget and capital improvement program workshop for the town of Brunswick this March 23rd, 2026. Was the meeting properly noticed? Yes, it was. Thank you. I will note that we have two counselors that will be joining us on Zoom, uh, Councilor Teamy as well as Counselor Wilson. Counselor Wilson is currently here. Teamy uh has yet to arrive, but told me they were going to be participating that way. So just so we know. Are there any adjustments to the agenda over here uh for this budget workshop? Not seeing any. I'll remind folks that are in the audience or on Zoom that this is a budget workshop, so it's a little bit less formal than our our council meetings. We will be uh hearing a couple presentations today. Um, one from public works, one from the engineering department. Um the town manager is gonna do a little presentation, and then we're gonna have a discussion. Um there will be public comment after council discussion before we adjourn. So if you have public comment that you would like to state, that would be the time to do so. But without further ado, I will turn it over to the public works department. Good evening. I'm running late in public works director. All right. And then discuss some of the upcoming uh budget requests and some of the challenges moving forward. Go ahead, Larry. So just as a um recap for some that haven't been here uh for long. But in 2018, the public works department uh the at the time the director was the town engineer. So at that time they split responsibilities, and which is why you have two presentations tonight, one from public works, one from engineering. And from the public works standpoint, basically we kept the maintenance side of the house when it came to public public infrastructure. So we're responsible for taking care of uh 150 miles of road, approximately 40 miles of sidewalk. Um both of those uh amounts tend to go up occasionally. Um approximately 2700 road and traffic signs, 2700 catch basins, 50 miles of storm pipe, uh, and then another 150 miles of pavement markings, which is kind of weird that it actually matches the mileage considering we don't stripe everything uh but based on some of the four-lane sections of the of the roadways and uh areas where there's center line and and edge line versus just um center line. Uh and then of course the grand road processing facility. Um this data that data all came out of our GAS system, and I did I know you guys heard this at the last council meeting, but I would be remiss if I didn't say congratulations to Jessica again. She is a fantastic asset to this town, and a lot of the stuff that we do, she's built for us. So it's just been I just wanted to give my my kudos to her in public because she has been an excellent, excellent uh addition for us. Um this budget represents um 30 full-time employees and two to five part-time employees, and I say the two to five because uh for the last two years, Public Works has partnered with Region 10. Uh, and so we do their with their pre-apprentice program. Um over the last three or four years, we've really struggled with trying to find employees. And so we would really uh working on a um some inroads wherever we could find them. Um and for the last two years we've been able to work with Region 10 and Jason Darling, who's their pre-apprentice program uh leader, and it's uh worked out very well for us this past. Well, currently we have three um students that have been working with us through part of the year. Um the year before that we had a a couple in one of those uh employee uh one of those students actually became a full-time employee for a little over a year for us. So it's it's worked out fairly well. We go to the career fairs there, and it's um been a good good partnership. Um the rest of that stuff is just the list of all the different parts and pieces that we have uh to help us do our job. Next slide. Uh typically we like to talk about some of the highlights for for the last year, and it's kind of strange doing it fiscal year because our construction season is kind of the fall, and then we jump into winter operations or excuse me, summer and fall. So there's quite an overlap there. Um but we tried to jot down some of the things that we had done basically since last July. And um we've been very productive for the last year. Um see there just the the different items that we've we've accomplished. Um we have done a fair amount of uh tree work with contractors.
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