Town’s 2021-22 budget takes shape

GREENWICH — Are you ready for 2020 to end? The Board of Estimate and Taxation is already beginning work on the 2021-22 municipal budget.

On Thursday morning, the BET’s Budget Committee did its first read of the proposed guidelines for next year’s budget in the town of Greenwich.

“It’s a different kind of a budget year,” Budget Committee Chair Leslie Tarkington said during a Zoom meeting Thursday. “We have to respect that there is in the current fiscal year the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. … It is unclear what the impact will be on the fiscal year ’22 budget cycle. The expectation is to return to a level of normal.”

Under the proposed guidelines, the budget would total $456.3 million in the next fiscal year, which would be an increase of $8 million.

Under the proposed guidelines, the budget would total $456.3 million in the next fiscal year, which would be an increase of $8 million. This proposed framework, which is not an official budget proposal, would mean a 3.92 percent increase in town spending and a 4.36 percent rise in school spending.

Non-salary accounts in town departments would not be allowed to grow by more than 2 percent, under the guidelines.

The budget would include a projected $40 million allocation for capital projects for the town.

The mill rate would increase 1.6 percent in 2021-22 under these guidelines, town Budget Director Roland Geiger said. The current $448 million municipal budget came with a cut in the mill rate due to the economic impact of the coronavirus crisis.

Tarkington said she hoped to hold a vote on the guidelines at the committee’s next meeting on Oct. 13 so they could go to the full BET for a vote later in the month.

The two Democrats on the four-member committee objected to the timeframe and the language of the guidelines, which they say is too restrictive and doesn’t provide enough money for capital spending.

“Since we don’t have a list of capital projects, it’s hard for me to discuss with you which capital projects are being artificially postponed,” Budget Committee member Jeff Ramer said. “But clearly there is a postponement of capital projects. You’re going to find yourself in a posture where you begin to get back to the setting where you, for example, are squeezing schools to do less capital maintenance and then begin to pay higher costs for the consequences of the capital maintenance.”

Ramer pointed to Hamilton Avenue School, where maintenance and repairs were pushed off for years until the building became too dangerous to use. It ultimately meant a new building, with years of modular classrooms and construction delays coming in at a high cost for the town.

“Just saying words to you like Hamilton Avenue ought to make a cold chill pass through you,” he said.

Ramer’s concerns were echoed by committee member Leslie Moriarty, a past committee chair and head of the BET’s Democratic caucus. She said there was less communication with town departments about needs before the guidelines were crafted.

“These guidelines drop any mention of service levels,” Moriarty said. “It also doesn’t really give the departments an expectation that we’re willing to talk to them in February about any differences in the numbers that appear in these sheets.”

As for capital projects, she said the plan “concerns me incredibly.”

“I think this is setting the town on a path of underfunding maintenance, underfunding projects and not giving us the ability to fund it in the future,” Moriarty said.

Budget Committee member Debra Hess noted how town spending was adjusted after the pandemic hit, disrupting the schedule for projects and bringing more scrutiny to capital spending.

“One of the things we need to look at with respect to capital is what really can be achieved in the upcoming year,” Hess said. “That should be our discussion in the February meetings” on the budget.

The guidelines were received in written form on Tuesday, Ramer said.

“We’re supposed to vote on these on Tuesday after a three-day holiday weekend and bring this to a conclusion,” he said. “I think that’s a giddy-up that’s not necessary.”

Hess said she was “looking forward” to discussing any changes before Tuesday’s committee vote. Many of the concerns brought up Thursday were exactly what would be discussed during the committee’s February budget hearings, she said.

Tarkington said any suggested changes that Moriarty and Ramer wanted to make could be sent to her before Tuesday.

“We’re all working together,” Tarkington said.

The BET’s budget guidelines are not binding and are meant to state what the finance board is willing to accept in a budget when it begins its deliberation. The budget will be proposed in late January by First Selectman Fred Camillo, and the Budget Committee will begin its work immediately after that.

The guidelines call for all department heads, including Camillo, be “flexible and nimble.” On Thursday, after the committee’s meeting, BET Chair Michael Mason said they are taking the budget guidelines seriously.

“The BET is looking to get things back to normal,” Mason said. “These guidelines are a snapshot of where things are today.”