Council Passes $58 Million Budget

This story was amended at 8:30 a.m., May 15.

The East Greenwich Town Council approved a $58 million budget for fiscal year 2014 Monday night, which included money for fire and rescue services in anticipation of Gov. Chafee's signing of the bill to merge the East Greenwich Fire District and the Town of East Greenwich.

The budget will be presented to voters at the annual Financial Town Meeting in June. 

The tax rate would rise to $22.94 per $1,000 of assessed property value, up 70 cents over the current year's tax rate of $22.24* – a 3.14 percent increase. (*An important distinction here: $22.24 represents $20.14 for the Town of East Greenwich and $2.10 for the EG Fire District.)

For a house valued at $400,000, that would mean a $9,176 tax bill next year, as compared to $8,896 tax bill this year – an increase of $280.

Council members took three-and-a-half hours to go through a variety of not-quite discretionary, but also not contractual budget items – items like new police cars, money to paint town hall, and road resurfacing.

That last item, road resurfacing, prompted the most debate. The budget put forward by Town Manager Bill Sequino included $250,000 for road work. Public Works Director Joe Duarte has estimated he would need $2.6 million to fix all the roads in East Greenwich, as well as another $600,000 for sidewalk repairs.

Given that disparity, Councilor Brad Bishop suggested the town go out to bond for road work.

"I think we really haven’t invested in our roads in many years," Bishop said. "It just feels to me we haven’t kept them at the level they need to be. I think there are many that are beyond what we deem acceptable."

But no one else on the council supported that idea.

"I think I’d rather see us pay some of the debt we have now," said Council President Michael Isaacs.

East Greenwich owes tens of millions of dollars for a variety of town building projects (among them the police station, Swift Community Center, the new Cole Middle School and renovations at the other schools). Next year's budget includes $6.8 million in debt (i.e. bond) repayment.

"I would rather see us, if we need to do it, add additional money to the budget for road resurfacing," Isaacs said.

But a motion from Bishop to do just that – to increase the roads budget line item to $350,000 – was voted down, 3-2, with Bishop and Isaacs on the losing side.

Councilors voted to reduce the number of new police cars in the 2014 budget from four to three, for a savings of $45,000 (new police cars with all the bells and whistles are more expensive than cars most people drive).

But Police Chief Tom Coyle did get other requests, including the addition of two employees – a second school resource officer (SRO) and an additional detective – despite a last-minute moment of "buyer's remorse" from Councilor Mark Gee, who said he regretted supporting the additional SRO at a previous meeting. 

"I hate to have a knee-jerk reaction to the Boston bombing and other acts of terrorism," said Gee. "I honestly don’t believe we will endanger our children by not have an SRO at Cole and rotating through the elementary schools."

Isaacs, and other councilors as it turned out, disagreed. 

"We originally had two SROs," said Isaacs. "I saw it as a restoration and a continuation of a successful program."

Joe Duarte at Public Works didn't get everything he had requested, including another mechanic. The main reason for that, according to Isaacs, was a reluctance to add a third full-time employee to the town rolls.

"We felt like we needed to fund these two police positions, but not another employee," said Isaacs Tuesday. "We'll wait a year and reevaluate. You have to draw lines somewhere."

EG Patch will post a story about the fire and rescue part of the budget tomorrow.