Vote to Impose Spending Limit Fails

A move to impose a 1 percent budget across-the-board increase for the 2011-2012 fiscal year failed to garner the support of the Budget Overview Committee of the Representative Town Meeting Thursday night.

The committee considered the proposal presented by Lucia Jansen, a District 7 RTM member who said she was acting as an individual rather than an RTM member, made the proposal saying it was being submitted by a group of 20 citizens. The proposal would have allowed the full RTM at its March 14 meeting to vote on a sense of the meeting resolution requesting the BET adopt a budget with a maximum increase of 1 percent.

The move failed with a vote of 8 to 3, with the eight members voting not to support it in the two-hour plus meeting at Town Hall.

The proposal would have reduced the increase of the proposed combined town, Board of Education and capital budget of $357.3 million to $3.4 million over the current combined budget of $340.8 million.

The BET is considering approval of a proposed overall town budget of $103,885,225 or 1.39 percent more than this year’s $102,463,796 budget. The Board of Education’s $135.4 million budget represents an increase of 3.25 percent over this year’s $131.2 million budget. Adding in the Capital Improvement Program Projects of $86 million and capital expenditures, the total proposed spending plan of $357,389,548.

Once the BET makes its recommendation, the RTM begins its review, voting a final fiscal plan in May.

Imposing a smaller increase in proposed spending would reduce the proposed Board of Education of $135.4 million by about $5.6 million. In an outline of how the reduced budget lines would play out, a budgetary breakdown by departments showed cuts of more than $527,000 for the fire department; $769,000 to the police department; $824,000 for public works; $404,000 for parks and recreation, and $308,000 for Greenwich Library.

“You want the BET to pass a one-percent increase but the RTM is approving contracts with 2’s, 3’s and 4’s increases,” said BET Chairman Steven Walko.

Town officials and school board member Michael Bodson said that 85 percent of budget costs are mandated through labor contracts, state and federal regulations, pension obligations and health insurance.

Bodson said such a large decrease in the school budget would translate into “fewer teachers, larger classes, and the first thing we hear every fall is ‘we want smaller classes.’”

In addressing the committee, First Selectman Peter Tesei said in his meetings last fall with a dozen neighborhood associations, no one discussed what services the town should cut. “We have to preserve the value of the community. Once we lose the value of the community, we’re on a slippery slope and we lose the cache of Greenwich,” Tesei said.

Parks and Recreation Superintendent Joseph Siciliano said if a 1 percent increase is imposed, he would lose $404,000 from his budget. “We have lost 23 bodies in the last five years (through staff reductions). It is going to affect my program base …  you need to decide as taxpayers what programs you want.”

Some budget committee members said they do not feel qualified nor do they have the time to conduct a line-by-line review to recommend specific cuts. “We should have the department heads do that,” said Bill Galvin, a District 7 RTM member.