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Originally Posted by John Mercier
I guess it depends on the town. Ours internally and externally audits.
Our road manager generally goes before the BoS at the end of spring, and requests that left over funds be allocated to specific road repairs and material from unforeseen spring related damage.
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Similar here (Merrimack). We're on a July 1 fiscal year, so we can see better what needs are and have last quarter planning, compared to a 12/31 fiscal year where you are spending in January, hoping to pass a budget in March, and maybe using Tax Anticipation Notes (TAN). Years ago, we put money for capital reserve funds in the operating budget. These line items gave the BOS flexibility in when to add to the CRF and perhaps add to the salt fund in a mild winter. Now, DRA requires (maybe they always did?) that CRF contributions be a separate special warrant article. The danger there is that if voters don't want to add to a particular CRF, they might vote "no" and kill contributions to all CRF.
For those that don't know, the NH General Court has a group called the Legislative Budget Assistant. They do audits of each department, and give legislators an analysis on the fiscal impact of proposed legislation. Less well known is that they do "performance audits" to see if departments really need all their employees, or if they need more in places where the legislature needs to authorize more and if existing laws need to be updated. Little known, but valuable service. Note that, in our citizen legislature we have a large number of experts from doctors to carpenters with hands on experience, where many states fill their legislatures with lawyers. I'm proud of how we manage ourselves in NH.