KINGFIELD – Town officials are planning to hold a special town meeting on Nov. 2 to decide whether to change the town’s fiscal year.
Currently, Kingfield works on a calendar-based fiscal year, beginning on Jan. 1 and ending on Dec. 31. A committee of residents and the selectmen, however, are exploring shifting that fiscal year to begin on July 1 and end on June 30. That would move the town meeting from March to sometime in the early summer, likely June.
The Town Meeting Committee made its recommendation at a public hearing Monday evening.
“There’s quite a few [other towns] that have switched,” committee member Jack McKee said. “It allows you to do a better job of budgeting.”
That’s because the state, school district and now county government’s fiscal years work on a July to June system. Being on the same system gives the selectmen and other town officials more information about what the state’s funding for education, roads and other projects will look like.
Farmington Town Manager Richard Davis went through the switch back when he worked at Wilton. Overall, he said he thought it was a positive experience, when asked to come and speak to Kingfield selectmen and residents.
“I think it was pretty well received,” he said. “It was an adjustment people had to make, of course.”
A six-month budget would need to be enacted, should the town decide to move forward. That would take the town from Jan 1 to June 30, when a one year budget would begin Kingfield’s new fiscal year. Selectmen would not be voted on until the summer town meeting.
The town could then use a two-step tax billing system, asking residents to pay half of their taxes sometime in the fall and the other half sometime in the summer. This would give the town access to tax money earlier, and give residents some more flexibility.
The town meeting in May or June would work just like the current one does. Selectmen could pick a day, as they can now.
While selectmen could simply vote to switch the fiscal year to a July/June system on their own, both residents and the board said they were interested in having a special town meeting to debate the issue. That would be held on Nov. 2, a Monday, at 6 p.m. in the town office building.
