Trucks, Trees, Tech: Budget Talks Get Down To Nitty Gritty

The budget process is bumping up against the town's charter, which requires a budget be approved by the Town Council to approve a budget recommendation for the Financial Town Meeting by May 15. The FTM is Monday, June 11. So it's all budget all the time for the next two weeks anyway.

Last month, Town Manager Bill Sequino proposed a $52.5 million budget for fiscal year 2014, which begins July 1. Such a budget would require a 3.2 percent tax rate increase, or 65 cents. On a house valued at $400,000, that would mean a tax bill of $8,316.

By state law, the town cannot increase taxes any more than 4 percent next year, but after the initial budget was released, Town Council President Michael Isaacs asked Sequino to cut the increase to below 3 percent.

Since then, Sequino has put forward $156,000 in possible budget cuts, which would trim the tax rate increase to just under 3 percent. Several of those cuts were relatively easy. The $30,000 to fix the high school baseball fields will instead come out of remaining school field bond money. The $3,750 to cover the possibility of a special election could be cut outright, since such an event is rare in East Greenwich. So too the money for an inauguration, $2,600.

In addition, the newly approved trash hauling contract saves the town $71,000 – an instant budget cut. And no one seemed interested in fighting to save $26,000 in the budget for street trees.

There are other items under review as well. 

For instance, Sequino had budgeted $125,000 toward the $250,000 total cost of repainting Town Hall. The other $125,000 would go in the 2015 budget. But Public Works Director Joe Duarte said maybe the paint job could wait a year, particularly if that meant he would not be able get the two truck replacements he'd requested.

Duarte said the trucks he's requested – replacement dump and roller trucks – are needed. "We are making due," he said, but that's all.

Trucks are relatively large budget items – a new dump truck would cost $160,000, so I.T. manager Wendy Schmidle's plea for $10,000 for a new server seemed small by comparison. Schmidle said she was willing to see two other items in her budget go unfunded – equipment to enhance the town's online presence – in order to get the new server, as wel as $25,000 for switch replacement. 

Meanwhile, certain items, such as an additional police detective and second school resource officer, remained floating. One question was whether or not the school department would agree to share the cost of the second school resource officer as they had when the first officer was reinstated last year. The approximate total cost of an additional SRO would be around $75,000. School officials have not said they would be willing to pay half.

About the additional SRO, Police Chief Tom Coyle said, "Is this a cure-all? No, it’s not. But it’s a good deterrent. Having an SRO in the school breeds safety, security and order."

The second SRO would be assigned to Cole, but both officers would rotate through the elementary schools too.

As for the additional detective, Chief Tom Coyle told the council last week it was time. "I’ve been on the force for 25 years," he said. "During that time,  the number of detectives on the force has stayed the same."

One ask that the Town Council came out against Monday night was from the Greenwich Odeum, which requested a $5,000 grant in fiscal year 2014. 

"With all due respect to the fine work people have done to reopen the Odeum, I don’t think we should take people’s tax dollars and make a donation," said Councilor Jeff Cianciolo. "I don't think that's what we should be doing." 

After the three other councilors present voiced their agreement with Cianciolo, Sequino was directed to convey the news to Odeum board president Frank Prosnitz. (Michael Kiernan was absent.) Sequino is the town's representative on the Odeum board.

Council members eliminated the majority of town grants a year ago, leaving only money for the EG Animal Protection League ($15,000) and Summer's End ($5,000). Under the proposed budget, the grant for the EGAPL would return to the 2012 level of $19,000. 

The Town Council will resume budget work at its next meeting, Monday, May 6.