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Board of Finance corrects levy figures and orders clearer budget handouts before town meeting
Summary
At an April 8 workshop the Andover Board of Finance found and fixed calculation and rounding errors in the RAM/levy presentation, agreed to use BOE-posted adopted totals for public slides, and asked the Board of Education to provide an Excel version with dollar- and percent-change fields populated for printing and distribution ahead of the referendum.
The Andover Board of Finance spent much of a special April 8 budget workshop correcting inconsistencies in the presentation slides that would be shown at the town meeting and referendum. Members identified pasted, static values on PowerPoint slides that did not match underlying Excel formulas and resolved rounding and percentage-display issues.
Liz, who led the spreadsheet review, said two slides (notably slide 4 and slide 11) showed conflicting RAM/levy values and that the correct RAM proposed total should be $4,258,178 while an earlier line used $4,135,532. After recalculating in Excel, the board agreed the percent change for one line should read about 2.97% (and a corresponding negative offset of about −3.29% when applicable). "I think that number is right," Liz said while walking members through the recalculation.
Board members debated how to present very small percentage changes. Lisa recommended marking near-zero changes with a tilde ("~0") to avoid confusing voters when a number rounds to zero but is not exactly zero. The group also traced a separate discrepancy in the BOE budget PDF: when summed in Excel the adopted 2025–26 school total differed from the PDF by roughly $1,600–$2,000. After checking QuickBooks and the budget packet, members decided to use the BOE's posted adopted totals for public materials to minimize confusion while correcting spreadsheet formulas used internally.
To improve transparency, the board asked the Board of Education to provide a version of the budget chart with dollar-change and percentage-change columns populated throughout the document rather than only at subtotals. Members offered to share their Excel formulas and to help the BOE populate the sheet. The board also discussed printing needs for the town meeting and estimated at least 100 handouts; they agreed to ask the BOE to print copies or to supply a ready-to-print PDF so town staff could produce handouts in advance.
Members also flagged presentation drivers to include on the town side (salary and benefit increases, a roughly 21% health‑care insurance increase, higher legal-retainer estimates, and possible new administrative staffing) to match the BOE driver slide format. Rob, moderating the call, said he would work with Liz on final edits and file a corrected version for circulation.
Next steps: the board will send the corrected presentation to members, ask the BOE for the fully populated Excel version for printing, and include a short addendum at the front of any already-printed packets if last-minute numeric adjustments are required.
