Block Island Times

Council reviews ‘uncertain’ town budget for 2021

Uncertainty and flexibility. Adjustments. “Everything is speculative.”
These were the phrases hovering over the Town Council’s review of the 2021 municipal budget at its meeting on Monday, June. 8.
“Before we get into the details of the budget, I want to pick up on the theme of uncertainty and flexibility because those are probably the two defining characteristics of this budget. We don’t have a great sense of what the next three to six months are going to be, and we need to preserve the flexibility to keep the town running in the most fiscally responsible way. When you talk about what those revenues might be, they could be at the levels we project, lower, or higher, or the even greater unknown in the opportunity for state and federal aid to flow through the town,” said Finance Director Amy Land at the outset of the meeting.
“We’ve been careful with the budget to preserve flexibility on the spending side,” said Land. “The second part of that is acknowledging the responsibility and obligation we have if things do not shape up at the levels we’ve projected. If the revenues are lower than we are looking for and outside aid

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