By James Lomuscio
Gordon Joseloff: “doing more with less.” Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
Don O’Day: touts benefit reductions. Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
Westport First Selectman Gordon Joseloff and School Board Chairman Donald O’Day each presented their proposed 2012-13 budgets to the Board of Finance Wednesday night, final presentations before the the finance board votes at the end of this month.
Both Joseloff and O’Day touted their budgets as austere and flat in light of fiscal constraints that demand ongoing cost savings.
Joseloff’s proposed proposed $73.9 million municipal budget represents a 3 percent increase over the current year, and the school board’s $100.2 million proposed budget is a 2.17 percent increase.
“You may have not been counting, but this is my seventh as Westport’s First Selectman,” said Joseloff. “It is similar to recent years in that it shares a common theme – doing more with less.”
Austerity was Joseloff’s theme, stressing that it should come as no surprise to residents as “the livelihoods of many Westporters are tied to the finance or real estate industries.”
“So what does that mean for those of us responsible for governing?” he asked. “It means continue to look for efficiencies. It means looking for ways to continue to deliver superior services at affordable costs. It means being realistic in our budgeting and conservative in our forecasts.”
He spoke about personnel reductions, consolidating some services with the Board of Education, using part time and seasonal help, and relying more on public-private partnerships to fund “the nice-to-haves,” such as the private raising of $200,000 to build a new Halfway House at Longshore Park.
“Getting to some of the 2012-13 number specifics, the majority of departments submitted flat budgets,” Joseloff said. “This was in response to my directive for controlling costs and offsetting those expenses that are out of our control—such things as health care and energy. “
He noted that total town increase in spending of $2,204,007 represents a 3.08 percent increase over the 2011-2012 budget.
The major increases, he said, include a $777,000 increase in road repairs, transfers to the Capital and Non Recurring in the amount of $500,000, a $114,000 transfer to the Sewer Fund, $175,000 for police and fire vehicle replacement and $500,000 in additional health and wage increases.
“I hope you and the RTM will be especially supportive of the road repairs increase,” he said.
“As you know, this is an area where we have cut back so much in recent years. …Neglecting our infrastructure needs, whether it is roads or buildings, is a recipe for disaster.”
Joseloff stressed that pension and OPEB (other post employment benefits) expenses continue to drive the increases.
To address that, he said the town “has made substantial changes in personnel benefits by closing the defined benefit plans for the Non-Union Supervisory and Non Union Non-Supervisory Pension Plans to new entrants effective Jan. 1, 2012.”
All newly hired employees under these two groups will be covered by a new 401k defined contribution plan, he said.
Meanwhile, Joseloff said the town will renegotiate municipal union contracts as they expire to counter the town’s history of all too generous benefits.
“As you know, we have a new actuary firm that is helping us get a handle on not only on valuations and liabilities, but we expect they will also be helpful in better managing costs such as health care,” he said.
Avi Kaner, finance board chairman, lauded the proposed budget as “the tightest first-run budget I’ve seen in seven years, and I thank you for doing that.”
Former chairman, Helen Garten, however, said that while she respects the sacrifices town department heads have made, “I have a problem supporting a budget with a 3 percent increase and a diminution of services.”
Board member Brian Stern agreed, saying that there is “no plan to seriously modify pensions and to get OPEB down.”
“We spent one dollar in benefits for every dollar of payroll,” said Stern, calling pension and benefits obligations “suffocating.”
Kaner countered that the 401k defined contribution plan that he worked on with Joseloff was a step in the right direction.
Later, O’Day spoke, pointing out that the school board approved $100.2 million budget, a 2.17 percent increase over the current year, was a decrease from Schools Superintendent Elliott Landon’s $100.5 million proposed budget, which would have been a 2.5 percent increase.
Landon’s budget was first presented to the school board in December.
O’Day touted the school board’s reduction in benefits costs, -.08 percent, which he said was unheard of in other communities.
Much of that reduction was gleaned by switching to a new insurance carrier. There has also been a reduction in staff over the past five years, dropping from 900 to 872, “and not all of those reductions came from attrition,” O’Day said.
“Overall, we are leading the pack on (low) budget increases,” O’Day said when comparing Westport to other towns in the region. “Relative to our peers, we’re in pretty good shape.”
“We have the right to ask that the Board of Finance approve our budget as presented,” he added.
Kaner asked how much the school board could save having school buses parked on town and school property as opposed to a private parking area the district pays for off Post Road East.
When O’Day said that the district pays $250,000 a year to park buses there, Landon spoke up, saying that other locations were being examined, including a piece of state-owned property near the Sherwood Island Connector currently used for maintenance by the Department of Transportation.
