The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Reasonable,’ ‘prudent’ $33.6M plan goes to polls
PORTLAND >> The Board of Selectmen has approved a proposed $33.65 million budget for the coming fiscal year.
The selectmen unanimously adopted the proposal this week after holding three workshops to review and discuss the proposed spending package.
The proposal, which residents will act upon in a May 8 referendum, includes $12.97 million in funding for general government operations and $20.68 million for education. General government is all non-education spending and includes funding for police, public works and the day-to-day operations of town government. It also includes debt service, the interest paid on previously approved bonded debt.
The proposed spending total, which will fund government operations in the new fiscal year which
begins in July 1, would require a 0.47 increase in the tax rate if approved.
The spending plan represents a 3.59 percent increase over the current year’s spending, according to Bransfield, who said, if adopted, the budget would raise the mill rate from 32.51 to 32.98.
The budget-making process this year has been conducted in the shadow of continuing uncertainty about the status of state finances — and the impact on state aid to cities and town.
The General Assembly appears unlikely to act on a budget proposal until well after residents — by charter — must approve the town budget.
First Selectwoman Susan S. Bransfield acknowledged the uncertainty in comments she made in her Town Hall office on Thursday. “I believe this is a prudent budget,” Bransfield said. “Our numbers weren’t as drastic as the cuts that were made to some of the others cities and towns,” she said, referring to the two reductions in state aid.
However, “We are paying closer attention to what the General Assembly is doing.”
In the meantime, “The selectmen feel confident about what’s in this budget and I hope the taxpayers will agree with their assessment and will vote for it in May.”
Bransfield thanked her board colleagues for their work in constructing a budget that she said “meets the needs of our residents without putting too great a burden on the taxpayers.”
Bransfield said Director of Finance Tom E. Robinson is preparing hard copies of the budget that will be then be made available for residents to review at the Town Clerk’s office, the Portland Public Library or in first selectman’s office.
The budget will also be put up on the town’s website, she said. Copies and the online version of the budget should be available “by the end of next week,” Bransfield said.
The selectmen did little cutting within the budget. They made no cuts to the education proposal, for instance.
However, during its review prior to submitting the budget to the selectmen, Bransfield and Robinson did reduce Superintendent of Schools Philip B. O’Reilly’s proposed request by $70,000.
The proposed budget calls for spending $1.6 million on proposed capital items, so-called “big-ticket items,” one-time expenditures that generally involve vehicle replacements.
Included in the 2017-18 budget is a lease/buy agreement that would fund a new highway garage generator ($60,000), a new street sweeper ($250,000), a large dump truck with plows ($218,000), a paver ($100,000) and a new backhoe ($160,000).
With interest rates “still reasonably low,” Bransfield said it was prudent to go forward with the lease/buy plan. “We will buy the new equipment beginning in July in the next fiscal year, and then pay it off over six years. We’ll have that equipment to use as we are paying it off,” she said.
Bransfield thanked O’Reilly as well as all the department heads for their work in putting together what she described as “a reasonable budget that will meets the needs of the taxpayers next year.”