Norwich again delays layoffs, new hires

City Council still waiting for Hartford to OK state budget

Norwich — For the third time since the city passed its 201718 budget, the City Council has had to delay new hires and scheduled position cuts because the state has yet to enact a spending plan.

The council voted Monday to delay employee position changes already included in the approved budget until Dec. 1 in the hopes that the state will have a budget in place by then. If not, any further delays in the city’s hiring and layoff plans would have to be approved by the new mayor

and council to be sworn in Dec. 5.

On June 12, the council approved a budget calling for cutting two police positions, a Public Works Department foreman, recycling coordinator and a laborer and a Human Services Department employment case manager and office clerk. Some of those positions, including the police officers, are already vacant and would not need layoffs.

The delay would include the hiring of one police officer and a blight control/housing enforcement officer. But the resolution approved Monday included one change of plans based on a new vacancy. City Manager John Salomone said delaying filling a full-time recreation facilities maintenance

supervisor position would save more money than continuing to delay the hiring of a new part-time recreation director. The city has been without a recreation director since fall of 2013.

The staff positions haven’t been the only disruptions in Norwich caused by the state’s inability to pass a budget. Also in June, the council agreed to delay motor vehicle tax bills until Oct. 1 and then resorted to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s earlier proposal that motor vehicle taxes be capped at 32 mills. Under Malloy’s plan, cities and towns with tax rates higher than 32 mills would be reimbursed the difference by the state.

But in a new revised budget proposal Malloy released Monday, the motor vehicle tax

would be capped at 37 mills, likely meaning Norwich would send out a second set of motor vehicle tax bills to residents for the difference.

Norwich city Comptroller Josh Pothier said based on his review of the governor’s revised proposed budget and an analysis from the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, Norwich would see a loss of about $1 million from the estimates projected for state grants city officials placed in the approved city budget.

If that budget is adopted, Norwich officials could absorb the cuts with mid-year budget cuts or could use the city surplus to make up the loss, or use a combination of those two options, Pothier said.