Good evening.

Welcome to the um March 9th, 2026 town council meeting.

Welcome to the People's House of North Kingstown.

I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Um Linnae Drew sends her regrets.

Uh she is traveling for her day job, and she cannot be here today.

Uh pursuant to around general laws forty-two-six C, sorry, notice of this meeting has been posted with the Secretary of State's uh website.

Umce we last met town has faced at least one uh coup had had a couple of losses.

The first loss is longtime uh town resident, Mr.

Donald Stone.

I think many people saw Don Stone walking around town on a regular basis.

Um he had uh was very prominent town uh citizen.

Uh in addition, um uh Officer North King Sound police officer Brittany Dougal also passed.

Uh Officer Dougal was uh sworn in in December of last year and um took her own life uh several days ago.

Uh condolences go to her family and the NK police department.

And I'd ask after the Pledge of Allegiance that we stand for a moment of silence in honor of Mr.

Stone and Officer Dougal.

Thank you.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible liberty and justice for all of the uh tonight.

Um we're gonna start off with special business and it's uh introduction of the town manager's budget.

Uh so I will turn uh speaking over to our town manager, Mr.

Town Manager.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um so first I can't believe that this is my tenth budget that I proposed, so time does go by fast.

Um I do want to thank Kate Glass, the executive assistant and director of communications and finance director Deb Bridgeham for on their hard work and their long hours in putting together what is a very informative, easy to read and award-winning budget booklet.

So thank you for your hard work.

Um it definitely will show with anyone who takes a look at the budget booklet.

In accordance with the charter of the town of North Kingstown, I'm here by submitting the proposed fiscal year, June thirtieth, 2027 annual budget.

The fiscal year 2027 budget reflects a zero-based budgeting process as required by the town council.

A number of factors have converged to make this an especially challenging budget year.

Record setting increases in health care costs, increased tax exemptions, which provide a significant benefit to many taxpayers but reduce our annual revenue, increasing debt service cost to finance our new school and public safety projects that were approved in the 2024 bond referendums, level funding of state aid to education, state required increases to minimum wage, and the growing and ever increasing cost of asset and infrastructure management and maintenance.

I want to thank our department heads, all who are in here in attendance this evening.

I appreciate that, for their hard work in compiling and helping to compile department budgets which recognize the challenges that I just mentioned, sustain and improve the exceptional services provided to our residents, and all the while keeping in mind the increasing affordability challenges many of our taxpayers are facing today.

The efforts of our department heads and an innovative, fiscally responsible approach towards our fiscal year 2027 budget allows us to propose a budget that includes an increase of less than 3 percent over last year's budget within the municipal portion.

The following is a breakdown of the various changes in distinct categories of the FY 2027 budget.

So you see municipal administration of less than 3 percent at 2.98 percent increase, debt service up 5.71 percent, which I will talk about in a little while.

Town appropriation to the library up 3 percent, and town appropriation to education up 3.5 percent.

Statistically, North Kingstown has been the most generous community in all of Rhode Island when it comes to the town's annual appropriation to our school district.

While the funding recommended in our FY27 budget is slightly by 283,834 less than the North Kingstown School Department had requested, the FY 2027 budget allows for a 3.5 percent increase in the town appropriation to our school department.

I want to thank Superintendent Duver, his administrative team, and the entire school department for their successes and for the partnership and the communication that we have established in his two-year tenure.

As shown here in this slide and also in the budget book, the school department comprises 61.1 percent of the total of the town's total budget.

This figure rises dramatically when taking into account the school department debt service that is funded within the municipal portion of the total budget.

One of the most significant increases within the municipal portion of the budget is our debt service, where we are budgeting an increase of 5.71 percent for initial funding of our school department and public safety bond projects.

While we will continue to experience a slight reduction in debt via our debt cliff in the coming years, this portion of our budget will continue to see significant and demanding increases over the next few years as our bonding of these projects will provide increases that will be challenging.

And you see that in the slide when you push it out to FY28 and FY29, the significant increases.

These increases do match what we told the voters in 2024 prior to the bonds being approved, but they are indeed significant and will be very challenging in future years.

The fiscal year 2027 budget includes funding for outstanding services and facilities our residents have come to expect, funding to protect our IT infrastructure and replacement of end-of-life equipment, $750,000 for paving and maintaining our more than 150 miles of paved roads, funding of our highly regarded recreation and senior service programs, funding for our highly visible post-road facade program, funding for the priorities identified within the Asset Management Commission's capital improvement program, repairs to our community center and our municipal office building, and much more.

This budget also funds a 10 percent increase in our health care premiums.

Regretfully, our health care provider informed us after the finalization of the budget that the increase that we can expect will be even greater and in the 15 percent to 19 percent range.

This will require additional budget adjustments to be made by both the town and the school department to accomplish a balanced approved budget.

And the council will know when we have our all-day hearings, since the writing of the letter, we've received an updated and updated number we are now looking at about 17.1 percent.

So it was in that 15 to 19, but it is much greater than the 10 percent that we had budgeted.

So that will be a challenge, which we'll be talking about during the all-day sessions.

We will be utilizing $500,000 of our fund balance within the fiscal year FY 2027 budget to provide direct tax relief to our taxpayers.

Over the past nine years, we have built our municipal fund balance, our surplus to 21.6 million dollars.

And when considering the school department fund balance, it is a combined $30.7 million dollars.

While maintaining this surplus is critical as it helps us to keep our tax late tax rate low and provides tax relief with the investment income we make on this money, we feel this action is fiscally responsible and important to our taxpayers.

We will also be utilizing our fund balance in various restricted accounts for the funding of multiple projects, the funding of OPEB, and one-time purchases.

The fiscal year 2027 budget also allocates funding for our award-winning enterprise funds.