WORCESTER – City Manager Eric Batista’s office released its fiscal year 2024 budget recommendations on Friday, May 5, which proposes over $47 million in additional spending when compared to 2023 for a total budget of over $847.7 million. FY 2024 begins on July 1, 2023.
Nearly all of the increase is the result of a $46.5 million increase in new education funding from the state.
The budget also proposes $74 million in new borrowing and anticipated borrowing of $160 million for the following:
- $53.9 million – Worcester Public Schools projects;
- $39.8 million – other tax levy initiatives like streets and parks;
- $12.7 million – DCU Center improvements;
- $5.9 million – ESCo environmental resilience projects; and
- $47.3 million – sewer, water, off-street parking, and golf enterprise accounts.
The proposed budget also calls for over $31.2 million for debt service obligations.
The cost of providing education costs, a well-discussed issue recently due to the contract negotiations between Worcester School Committee and Educational Association of Worcester, the union that represents Worcester Public Schools teachers, make up a majority of the budget. The total expenditure on education in the proposal is $507.4 million, 60 percent of the total budget. However, the city expects to receive 368.9 million in education aid from the state.
Education costs above state aid received by the city is $138.5 million, or 16 percent of the total budget.
The Worcester Police Department is budgeted the same number of positions as in both 2022 and 2023, with 537. The total appropriation to the police department increases by $37,077. The city manager’s office assumes the same amount of overtime spending that was proposed for this year, $4.6 million. However, as of March 31, the Worcester Police Department has accrued $5.5 million in overtime costs this year, $900,000 over what was budgeted with three months to go in the fiscal year.
The Worcester Fire Department sees its appropriation cut by over a half-million dollars, a total cut of $575,255. The recommended appropriation for the fire department is $44,960,420.
The total appropriation to public safety, which is defined as the police, fire, emergency communications, and inspectional services departments, is $108.4 million, 12. 8 percent of the budget.
The other main categories of costs included in the budget are:
- Fixed Costs: $156.6 million
- Benefits, debt, snow removal, streetlights, financial plan funds
- Department of Public Works & Parks – $23 million
- DPW, streets, sanitation, engineering, parks, Auditorium
- Other City Operations – $52.3 million
- Public Library, HHS, Economic Development, Finance, General
City Manager Eric Batista’s full budget proposal is available at the City of Worcester website, under the annual budgets tab.
