East Windsor Selectmen Mull How to Apply 2% Spending Increase

So now that the East Windsor budget referendum failed three times - triggering the charter provision calling for an automatic 2 percent spending increase - all of the budgetary issues for the 2013-14 fiscal year are settled, right?

Not exactly.

Indeed, at the Board of Selectmen’s meeting on Tuesday, the issue was raised as to how the 2 percent spending increase is to be applied on the town side.

Should the 2 percent spending increase apply to every line item from the 2012-13 budget? Should every department get a 2 percent spending increase? Or is the 2 percent spending increase to apply only to the bottom line, and the powers that be can then allocate where the money is to go?

Selectman Jim Richards believes that the charter calls for the spending increase to apply to every line item from the 2012-13 budget.

Richards acknowledged that such an interpretation means that there will be a lot more work involved in determining the departments’ budgets. In addition, that approach will invariably lead to situations where departments or line items will get additional funding even when they do not need it.

For example, there is a line item in the 2012-13 budget for $144,000 for the IT department. That funding was to upgrade the town’s network and is not needed in the 2013-14 budget. Richards’ interpretation would keep that line item and add 2 percent to it.

The selectmen would then have to go back and move that funding elsewhere when the time comes.

Richards acknowledged that the town would essentially be working backwards to come up with the budget, but that’s what the charter calls for in his opinion.

Others, however, weren’t so sure.

Selectman Richard Pippin, Deputy First Selectman Alan Baker, First Selectman Denise Menard and Selectman Dale Nelson all expressed their reservations as to whether such an approach made sense.

Still, Richards remained unmoved.

“I’m going back to the letter of the law,” Richards said.