Board of Finance Says Budget Needs More Work

When it comes to the budget, "the good old days are gone," says Board of Finance member Brian Stern.

The board met Wednesday for a public hearing regarding the 2010-2011 municipal and education budgets. At the meeting, First Selectman Gordon Joseloff requested an overall town and education budget of $174.8 million, which is a 3.88 percent increase over the current year.

The figure represents a town-side increase of 7.6 percent and an education increase of just over 2 percent.

Board of Finance members said Joseloff's proposed budget allows for new employees, which some say the town can't afford this year when it needs to tighten its belt and focus on funding pension liabilities.

At workshops last week, the board indicated it was 'troubled' with the preliminary budget.

At that time, Joseloff was recommending the pensions be funded at half — about $4 million — of what would be required to fully fund the liability. He said fully funding the pensions would mean additional budget increases and higher taxes for residents.

Since those discussions, Joseloff said he's worked with town Finance Director John Kondub and other department chairs to reduce the budget in some areas in order to fund more of the pension liability

At Wednesday's meeting, Joseloff recommended funding the 2010-2011 pension contribution at $5.24 million, which is 26 percent higher than the current year. It's also about $1 million more than what he proposed last week.

"I further cut back on the road paving budget of Public Works," Joseloff said in reference to what was specifically cut to make more room for funding the pensions. "I reduced our contribution slightly to the capital and nonrecurring fund. We eliminated a planner position in Parks and Rec. We eliminated two vehicle purchases for the fire and building departmetns. We further reduced police overtime and took some money out of the capital budget for Information Technology. But, believe me, there was a lot of pain in doing all this."

Despite his changes, board members said the budget still needs some work.

"What this great recession has done has not just changed what the situation is today, it has reset the economy of Fairfield County and Westport," Stern said. "My judgement is that we ought to do whatever we can to keep taxes where they are now and only increase if it really is an emergency or we can't make up for the declining revenue by increased productivity."

Stern said the numbers over the past five years have not shown Westport is scaling back. 

"In town, we've increased employment 10 percent over the past five years," he said. "Our revenue from taxes have gone up 63 percent above the rate of inflation. ... We are not seeing the productivity that we need to see."

Board member Ken Wirfel said this is not the year for additional staff and instead the town needs to do more with less.

"I think we have to push harder to gain these efficiencies," he said. "We'll work together but we are not there yet."

Joseloff said he believes Westporters would sustain a modest tax increase to maintain services, but doing that and fully funding pensions would lead to  double-digit tax increases.

Board member Allyson Stollenwerck worried not fully funding would lead to  a larger hole in the pension liabilities and equate to bigger budget cuts and high tax increases next year.

Joseloff said while he doesn't know what the future holds, he believes a modest annualized tax increase of about 4 percent every year would allow the town to maintain services and close the gap in pension liabilities.

As far as the Board of Education budget, chairman Don O'Day presented the board's request for $96.6 million, a 2.13 percent increase over the current year.

About 82 percent of the operating budget is for staff. O'Day stressed that Westport schools "are the town's most significant attraction," and moving from "great schools to good schools" is in no one's interest.

Several members of the PTA and parents spoke during the public hearing to support the Board of Education's proposal.

"People don't move to Westport and pay the housing prices here to get a Chevrolet high school education," said parent Michael Book. "They want the best. ... So we sit here tonight and think about what we spend our money on. It's the town's money and if you asked everybody out there what they would want to spend their money on, it's this, the education of our children. ... We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our town and we owe it to our future leaders."

The Board of Finance will continue budget deliberations at its next meeting on March 23.