Before this year’s Annual Budget gets to April’s Town Meeting -- where it will be discussed and voted upon section by section -- it will already have gone through five months of review, several sets of hands, and multiple rounds of revision.

The process started late in the fall, when the Board of Selectmen set a target funding parameter for the year to come. This year, like the last four, the target was a 0% increase, excluding negotiated wage increases and increased benefits costs.

Then the real work began. Each Department Head submitted a draft budget to the Town Administrator, who proposed what changes he or she thought necessary. The Town Administrator then presented the revised budget to the budget task force, two members, each, from the Board of Selectmen and the Finance Committee. The task force, in turn, will present their revised budget at a joint meeting of both groups scheduled for March 13, when they will have one last chance to review or change the numbers before sending the final version to be printed in the Town Meeting Warrant.

Throughout the entire process there has been one constant, just as there has been since 1995: the critical eye of Town Accountant Trudi Brazil, Truro’s budget maven. Quick with a calculator, deeply versed in the intricacies of municipal finance, and blessed with both common sense and the ability to explain complicated issues in simple language, she is the expert to whom all of us turn at each step.

Trudi never expected to become an accountant -- but she always knew she wanted to live in Truro. Raised in Taunton, she spent summers here, as did Scott, her friend since first grade and husband to be. After she graduated with a degree in English literature from Wheaton College in 1981, she and Scott married and moved to Truro full time.

Her Town Hall career started modestly in 1982 when she was hired as a part-time secretary for the Zoning Board of Appeals. But something about her caught the eye of Alberta Fields, then the Town Accountant, who would become Trudi’s friend and mentor. Promoted to Assistant Accountant in 1982, Trudi was awarded the top job in 1984 when Ms Fields retired. After leaving Town Hall for ten years to start a family, Trudi came back to the Treasure’s Office in 1995 and has been a Town Hall fixture since then.

Trudi is pleased with the results of this year’s work: a total budget of $15,870,454.43, representing a modest increase of $35,374.40 or 2.5% over the budget for FY 2012. “There were no big surprises," she says. “It is a sustainable budget, and that’s been one of our rallying cries for the past few years.

“Truro has always been incredibly conservative. We’ve never been over-spenders. The Town has always lived within its means. Our budget is built by the people who are actually going to use the money, so they know they can work well within its limits. And it doesn’t overburden the community’s taxpayers.”

There was one big difference this year, however, Trudi admits: the presence in the process of Rex Peterson, the new Town Administrator. “That gave us a real advantage. Rex was in a learning curve. So he brought up questions that were timely and pertinent that other people had just assumed they knew how to answer.”

Curious about Truro’s FY 2013 Budget? The final version will be available for your review, online at www.truro-ma.gov, when the final numbers are set, no later than April 5.

Sincerely,

Curtis Hartman
Chair, Board of Selectmen
eNewsletter@truro-ma.gov
(508) 349-7004