RTM Finance Committee Approves Restoring $598,163 To Department Budgets

The Finance Committee of the Representative Town Meeting Tuesday night recommended restoring $598,163 to the Board of Selectmen's requested 2010-2011 operating budget.

The committee recommended restoring the funds after reviewing decisions recommended by the Board of Finance.

The committee also voted against restoring $250,000 to the Board of Education's budget cut by the finance board, after which it approved a school operating budget for next year of $96.378 million.

If all the restorations proposed by the committee are upheld, the town's operating budget next year would be $63.35 million.

Combined with the Board of Education's budget, the town's total budget for next year would amount to about $159.5 million.

The committee's decisions will be presented to the full RTM next Monday and Tuesday for approval, with an additional meeting on Wednesday, if needed, for the town's legislative body to conclude its deliberations on the town's 2010-2011 operating and capital budgets.

Overturning budget amounts approved by the Board of Finance requires a supermajority vote of 70 percent of the RTM's 36 members.

The committee's recommendation to the full RTM followed a 4 1/2 hour meeting, during which the chairwoman of the Board of Finance, Helen Garten, defended her panel's rationale for cutting department requests while First Selectman Gordon F. Joseloff argued funds could be restored without threatening the town's bond rating.

In evaluating budget requests for next year, Garten said finance board members showed "remarkable unity in purpose" in deciding to have zero growth in the operating budget and to fully fund the town's pension funds.

Garten said Westport is in a strong financial position because the finance board was "overly cautious" last year in limiting expenditures.

"We're lucky, and that's not true of a lot of towns in Connecticut," Garten said.

Garten said that, based on her observations, it would be unwise to expect a near-term increase in the town's revenues because of an improvement in the economy. As well, she said the town can't depend on investment returns to adequately cover expenditures from its pension funds.

The finance board recommended $7.93 million be contributed to the town's pension funds, an increase of almost 91 percent from the current year's budget.

Joseloff called for cutting the proposed contributions by $1 million, saying "that's not a lot" in a $170 million budget.

Joseloff said both the police chief and fire chief have said the proposed cuts to their budgets would make the town less safe. Joseloff said the cuts also would curtail town services to a level residents would find unacceptable.

Finance Committee Chairman Michael A. Rea praised the finance board's work, saying its members did an "unbelievable job."

Rea said he was approaching the budget from the position that bonuses and raises should be frozen and no funds should be restored.

Rea also said it would be a "recipe for disaster" to not fully fund the town's pension plans.