Finance board trims budget to $44.3M

EAST HAMPTON >> It was not pretty. Far from it, in fact.

But the Board of Finance did agree on a proposed 2017-18 budget Monday night.

It took votes on four different education proposals and then a great deal of back and forth to agree on a general government budget, including board members pitting the price of a playscape against a proposed increase in spending for school security.

In the end, two board members voted against the proposed total.

The $44.26 million package is scheduled to

be presented to the Town Council Tuesday evening.

If approved, the budget would increase by 3.05 percent over the current year’s spending total. The proposed total includes $30.05 million for education, an increase of 3.41 percent. The original budget presented by Superintendent of Schools Paul Smith had called for a 3.75 percent increase in school spending.

General government, which includes both capital items and debt service, will be funded at $14.2 million, a 2.30 percent increase.

During a public hearing last week, a number of education supporters requested and/or demanded the school budget be adopted without any reductions. Many of them said the charter change last year to allow separate votes on the education and general government budgets (a process known as “bifurcation”) precluded any reductions to the education budget.

However, on Monday, finance board member Dean Markham rejected that suggestion. “We have a duty as an elected board to scrutinize all aspects of the budget and put forward what we feel is the best budget for the town,” Markham said.

“The charter revision did nothing at all to affect the Board of Finance and the Town Council from acting on the education budget,” he continued.

Republicans, who control the board, presented a range of options for school spending that were developed during a weekend caucus of GOP board members.

By state law, only the Board of Education can make line-item reductions within the school budget, so all the finance board could do was establish a bottomline number.

In the weeks leading up to Monday night’s action, the finance board had wrestled with two issues: an anticipated reduction in funding for education on the one hand and a proposal by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to shift a portion of teacher pension costs onto cities and towns.

Smith has projected each of those actions — should they come to pass — will cost as much as $1.6 million and he included that projection in his budget. However, there has been general agreement among finance board members that it is unlikely the pension costs will be shifted onto the town, so they began their deliberations by agreeing to remove the estimated $1.6 million pension cost.

Michael Rose, newly appointed to the board, said removing the $1.6 million was necessary to send a message to legislators. “We have to get a message back to Hartford that the towns can’t afford it,” Rose said. “I don’t want to give the governor — or anyone in the governor’s office — the idea we can afford it.”

Board member Alan Hurst agreed to eliminating the projected pension costs and also called for zeroing out the projected education cost sharing reduction. With those two actions, Hurst said he was willing to let the education budget go forward at 3.75 percent, as Smith had requested.

His board colleagues weren’t, however.

Chairman Marc Lambert said he found a 3.75 percent increase “a challenge, given all the uncertainty” surrounding the state aid issue. Lambert said he could live with a reduction of $220,000.

Rose pressed for a number of “less than 3 percent,” which, he said, “would probably be more palatable to voters.”

Board member Stephen Ritchie questioned how widely the pain is being felt. Ritchie said he lives “in a modest house on 1.3 acres, and my household pays $330 a month to support education in East Hampton. I feel $330 a month is reasonable,” he continued.

But when he looks at the education budget, he realizes 85 percent of the total goes for salary, wages and benefits, Ritchie said, while “everything else goes into that 15 percent.”

“People like to ignore what’s going on in Hartford. Well, they can’t afford to,” Ritchie said. There has to be “relief across the board; it can’t just come from the taxpayers.”

Perhaps it’s time for teachers to consider a twoyear wage freeze as a gesture to the community, Ritchie said.

However, his proposal to reduce the budget by $292,270 was defeated 4-3. Hurst’s proposal to send the proposal forward at 3.75 percent, as Smith had requested, also failed 5-2.

Rose’s proposal for a $220,000 reduction failed 5-2 as well.

Hurst then proposed removing $100,000 in projected health-care costs and that motion won approval 4-3.

The board then turned its attention to general government. There were no large expenditures to be reduced, so board members looked for any savings — no matter how small.

Hurst began by saying he was “disgusted” that his request for $12,000 to be restored for book buying at the library was rejected.

When Ritchie proposed reducing a $12,000 item Hurst has suggested as alternate reduction for the library cut, Hurst struggled to control himself. “I feel double-crossed,” he said.

Board member Alannah Coshow called for reducing the town’s contribution to a playscape replacement by $20,000 and shifting that money to increase school security to $50,000.

While not directly mentioning Monday’s school shooting in San Bernardino, California, which left two adults and an 8-year-old child dead, Coshow said, “In today’s dangerous times, our children, first and foremost, must be protected.”

Rose agreed. “There is a recording out there” of a previous discussion on how the money will be used, he said. “There are a lot of weird people out there and I don’t want them hearing of the vulnerability” of the schools, he said.

But Lambert said he wanted to retain the $20,000 so the playscape could be finished once and for all.

Eventually, the donation to the playscape remained and two other sources were found to achieve the $20,000 for school safety.

Upset about the lack of funding for book buying with the town’s new library director present at the meeting, Hurst and Markham voted “no” on the total budget.