Town finance staff told the Finance Committee that a recent ClearGov software update consolidated revenue and expenditure data and combined fund views, a change that officials said made the system harder for department heads and town users to parse.

Ashley (town finance staff) said the ClearGov modification “made it a lot more complicated for the, you know, end users and and a little bit more complicated on our side.” Staff said, for this budget cycle, departments were asked to submit Excel spreadsheets; finance staff will merge those spreadsheets and supply the committee with the familiar summary sheets used for town meeting.

Officials also reviewed the near-term budget schedule. Department budget submissions were described as due Dec. 31 (capital and budgets). The committee set the following dates for upcoming budget work: Jan. 15 (regular meeting with police scheduled), Feb. 12 (joint meeting with Dudley-Charlton Regional School District and selectmen from both towns), Feb. 26 (Finance Committee budget hearings), and March 12 (final budget hearing). Town staff said FY2026 principal payments for new borrowing will begin in May 2026 and that an interest payment is expected in November 2025, aligning debt-service timing with tax due dates.

Finance staff said they will continue to provide the committee with a consolidated spreadsheet showing actuals for FY2023 and FY2024, the FY2025 budget, and FY2026 requests, plus percentage-change columns to make comparisons clear for each departmental hearing. Staff said they plan to run the current year in Excel for the remainder of this cycle and will evaluate whether to continue with ClearGov for future years.

Committee members and staff discussed that ClearGov’s consolidation of funds (water, sewer, general fund) into a single view removed some of the prior separation departments relied on, and that town staff will attempt to present data in the same readable formats used in prior years.