The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Geiger adds 3 jobs to $33.6M budget
Town manager proposes no tax increase; annual Town Meeting set for May 14
WINSTED — Officials shared details of the proposed 2018-19 fiscal year budgets with the community Monday evening during a public hearing, prompting a limited response from residents.
Town Manager Robert Geiger gave an overview of his proposed $33.6 million budget, which he said would not prompt a tax rate increase.
Three new positions are in the budget, Geiger said — a budget analyst, project manager for the Public Works Department, and fire chief role, with responsibilities beyond those in the traditional volunteer setup.
Due to retirements, the number of municipal employees will only increase by half a job, Geiger said.
The budget analyst would create and monitor spending against the annual capital and operating spending plans, checking on and working with town departments, as well as keeping track of filing and record-keeping, Geiger said.
The position would overlap with and support the responsibilities of Director of Finance Bruce Stratford, who is “more than occupied” by his current
job, Geiger said.
“There’s a lot more that can be done, and it would be very helpful to the future growth and development of our all of our processes and systems,” said Geiger. “This definitely would be a major asset to the town management to help improve processes and controls.”
The project manager would help with the near and long-term engineering of town projects, prepare statistical and narrative reports about the management of town assets, and develop and handle bid specifications and requests for proposals and qualifications.
“Even though we’ve got a public works budget, and we’ve got a road budget, and we’ve got a road outline as was prepared for us by Lenard Engineering, there’s a lot of work that goes on in between hiring a subcontractor and providing all the documentation and narratives necessary to complete any of these projects,” said Geiger. “It’s difficult to spend the money (on public works projects at this time) with sufficient project development specifications, monitoring
and follow-up.”
The additional specifications for the fire chief position were crafted with the aid of Fire Chief David Sartirana. Winsted, like other communities, has seen the number of volunteers dwindle in recent years.
Geiger, reading from a document he said was largely complied by Sartirana, said dealing with governmental mandates, recruiting, retaining and training volunteers, and keeping up with the growth of the town had pushed the position to the point that it should become paid.
There is $40,000 set aside in the budget for the fire chief position — a rate about half the full-time salary for a position in a similar community, with added fringe benefits, Geiger said. He said after the meeting that the potential number of hours for the job had not been set.
The general fund balance currently stands at approximately 18.7 percent of expenditures — above the 15 percent usually recommended for a good bond rating.
Geiger said he was proceeding with caution, given uncertainty about the future financial means of the state, but was not intending it to increase further.
Superintendent Melody Brady-Shanley also provided an overview of the proposed financial plans for the Winchester Public Schools Monday, as she did on March 26 at the hearing for the community’s educational budgets.
David LaPointe was the only resident to step forward and share his thoughts on the proposals Monday.
He said he considered both to be “good” budgets within the guidelines of the cost of living, and praised Brady-Shanley in particular for her efforts. He said the Winchester Taxpayers Association had chosen to not support the budgets, as the amount of taxes levied on residents was set to increase.
If approved, the budget will increase by slightly more than $200,000 over last year. Revenues are driven largely by a rise in property taxes and an additional grant, following growth in the grand list and an increase in the rate at which taxes on motor vehicles can be assessed.
At the suggestion of Mayor Althea Candy Perez, the Board of Selectmen decided to delay voting on whether to send the budget to the Annual Town Meeting, currently scheduled for May 14, until its April 16 meeting.