Selectmen begin next week, school board the week after. Valentines and chocolates may be February’s dessert treats, but budgets are its meat and potatoes.
Work has been going on behind the scenes, but the production of Ridgefield’s 2016-17 town and school budgets will become a more public process in February.
Town and school budgets put together mostly by people who work for the town or school system will be presented over the next two weeks to elected boards representing townspeople, taxpayers and parents, beginning the lengthy public review process that culminates with a townwide vote in the May budget referendum.
It’s an open and, sometimes, unpredictable process.
“That’s what makes for interesting discussions during our budgetary deliberations,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
A town-side budget notable for new personnel requests and the return of a $5-million police station proposal will get its first discussion by the Board of Selectmen next week, with meetings scheduled for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 2-4.
And the week after, school Superintendent Karen Baldwin is expected to make her first budget request to the full Board of Education on Monday, Feb. 8.
The school board is trying a slightly different approach this year, and hasn’t scheduled the usual two or three weeks of Monday and Wednesday budget presentations to the board, as has been the practice in recent years.
“We’re trying to make the subcommittees do a lot of the heavy lifting,” said school board Chairwoman Frances Walton. “Obviously the whole board reviews it and there’ll have to be a discussion.”
All three selectmen’s meetings next week are in town hall, and the Tuesday and Thursday sessions start at 7.
Wednesday’s budget discussions will follow the regular selectmen’s meeting, which begins at 7:30.
In the town budget, department heads are proposing to add some new personnel.
“There are people requested,” Marconi said Monday, Jan. 25. “Six plus — that’s approximating.”
The town currently has about 180 full-time employees, and 52 regular part-time workers — the part-time positions including things like working the recreation center desk.
In addition, there are “seasonal” employees who do things like summer lawn mowing at the town golf course, or on ball fields for Parks and Recreation.
Marconi is wary of adding to payroll.
“Personally, I believe we’re staffed properly at this point in time,” he said.
But it’s not his decision — at least not his alone.
“It’s up to the Board of Selectmen. I can only offer you my own opinion,” he said.
“We have two new members,” he added.
Marconi said he’d asked Controller Kevin Redmond for a projection of what kind of percentage increase the town department heads’ combined budget requests would add up to — but with all the proposed new personnel cut out right at the start.
“It came in at 2.16%,” he said. “But that’s without having firm numbers for health care increases and other insurance increases.”
Capital budget
The capital budget — major building projects and equipment purchases — is looked at separately. The costs aren’t annually recurring, and since they’re usually paid for by borrowing in the bond market, they don’t affect the next year’s tax rate, though they do add to debt service payments in subsequent years.
The combined capital requests added up to about $9 million — way more than Marconi expects will eventually be presented to voters in May.
“Capital, the Police Department has put in again a request for a new building at the current location, with a price tag of about $5 million,” Marconi said. “I would say that it’s there more for debate and discussion, as to a plan of action in the future.”
In projection scenarios Marconi has had done to see when various major anticipated projects might be accomplished without ballooning the town’s debt service, he said, the new police station is still a few years further into the future.
“But the chief has requested that we have it in this year, and give him and the commission an opportunity to discuss it with the Board of Selectmen,” Marconi said.
“If you take that out, it gets us down to about $4 million, total,” he said.
That’s still considerably more than the town is in the habit of spending.
A couple of years ago, the finance board took the annual road repairs — roughly $2 million most years — out of the capital budget and moved it to the operating budget, on the theory it’s a recurring expense better paid for as part of the tax levy than with borrowing.
“We were averaging $4 million plus or minus for all our capital purchases and work that we asked for taxpayer approval, and that was when the roads were included,” Marconi said.
So he looked at the traditional $4 million in bonded capital spending and eliminated $1.7 or $1.8 million for the road work that is no longer bonded.
“You’re down to $2.3, $2.2 million,” he said. “That will be our target this year.”
“In order to meet our forecasted debt service payments, debt retirement, we have to see our new capital in the $2- to $2.5-million range,” Marconi said.
The early tentative agenda for the selectmen’s budget review next week is as follows:
• Tuesday, Feb. 2, 7 p.m., town hall: information technology, fire department, parks and recreation department, general budget discussion.
• Wednesday, Feb: 3, 7:30 p.m., town hall (following regular agenda): library budget.
• Thursday, Feb. 4, 7 p.m., town hall: engineering, highway department, police department, general budget discussion.
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