Haverhill staff describe new 10-year budget model and collaborative, performance-based process

City auditor and chief financial officer Angel A. Perkins told the Haverhill City Council the administration has expanded its budget process to include a collaborative budget team, a 10-year projection and performance-based elements intended to prioritize capital projects and reduce last-minute funding requests.

"We've we've kind of gone through a budget model, which has included a 10 year projection," Perkins said, describing sessions with department heads, council members and a school committee representative to review reserves, debt capacity and capital planning.

Perkins said the effort aims to rank capital requests against consistent criteria — public safety, legal obligation, prior starts and overall city benefit — and to identify what can be paid ‘‘pay-as-you-go’’ versus what requires borrowing. She described the work as producing a set of charts and analyses used to test scenarios and measure how 1 percent increases compound over a decade.

Councilors who served on the budget team praised the change. Councilor Mitchison and Councilor LePage said the collaborative format has increased transparency; Vice President Jordan called it "definitely more collaborative process than it's been the past" and requested follow-up data on compensation comparisons between police and fire leadership that were discussed in prior sessions.

What the meeting recorded

- Team composition: Perkins said the budget team included the mayor, department heads, two council members (Councilor Mitchison and Councilor LePage) and a school committee member (Graman/Grama recorded in the transcript). The auditor said the team produced roughly 30 pages of materials and is meeting with department heads to finalize requests.

- Capital prioritization: Perkins explained the administration's goal is to fund capital projects through an approved capital plan rather than ad-hoc mid-year requests. She said the team applied objective criteria to rank projects and to estimate debt capacity and pay-as-you-go funding.

- Follow-ups requested: Vice President Jordan asked for the compensation comparison data the administration had previously identified for police and fire leadership; Perkins said HR and the mayor's office are handling collective bargaining and compensation work and agreed to push for the requested materials.

Why it matters: Perkins said the approach is intended to reduce surprise mid-year requests, improve long-range affordability of debt, and provide clearer decision-making criteria to the council and departments.

Proper names

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Meeting context

Engagement level: councilors on the subcommittee described an ongoing series of meetings; the budget topic prompted substantive discussion and requests for data from multiple councilors. Implementation risk: low to medium — policy and prioritization decisions will still require council votes as budgets and capital plans are advanced.

Searchable tags

["budget","10-year plan","capital plan","performance-based budgeting","Haverhill"]

Provenance

Topic intro excerpt: "Alright. We'll shift to that. So this is the second year that, we've we've had a collaborative, budget team..." (transcript segment at the start of the budget discussion). Topic finish excerpt: "Thank you, councilor. Vice President Jordan, I don't see any of the lights on. We have a motion and a second..." (end of the budget discussion before fiscal votes).