Squirrels and other wild animals are bright enough to “squirrel” away nuts for use as a winter food larder.

City and town budget planners are now faced with similar problems. In good times, municipalities should have had an option to institute “rainy day funds” designed to cover unexpected emergencies. Some municipalities did that, others did not. Their attitude was, “We will worry about that tomorrow.”

Welcome to tomorrow. Next year’s municipal budgets are going to look very different than last year’s budgets, thanks to the COVID-19 virus.

Although many municipal 2021 budgets are a year away, now is the time for city and town managers to begin to spread the bad news that next year’s budgets may include either spending cuts or property tax increases. Or both!

Job losses, business closures and a stalled national economy will dictate that many familiar municipal budget items, like expensive capital improvement programs, may have to be eliminated or indefinitely postponed.

It would be unfair to ask property owners, many of whom have already suffered job and income loses due to the virus pandemic, to then bear the burden of increased property taxes.

That would be unacceptable. Municipal officials and school board members have to wake up and realize that you cannot keep going to the public well every time you have a fiscal problem.

Prudence dictates that now is the time to begin thinking about what life is going to be like after the virus pandemic.

Municipal capital improvement projects should be considered on an “emergency only” basis. Expensive capital intensive projects, like road paving, should be put on hold until the economy improves.

Municipal swimming pools and city parks and recreation centers may not open this year because of the COVID-19 virus, which will offer some financial savings.

At some point, Concord City Hall must reopen. City officials should now be installing Plexiglas screens between city employees and the general public and deal with heating and cooling systems that are not immune to spreading the COVID-19 virus. The school board should be dealing with similar issues in schools and offices.

Health experts claim that there may be a second round of the COVID-19 virus arriving in November.

There will be a tomorrow, but it will not look like the tomorrows of the past.

(Jim Baer lives in Concord.)