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RTM approves budget

By Neil Vigdor
Staff Writer

May 9, 2006

An 11th-hour effort to remove $33 million from the 2006-07 proposed town budget for the new downtown public safety complex failed to win over a majority of Representative Town Meeting members last night.

The legislative body voted 143-37 with four abstentions against a resolution proposed by RTM Budget Overview Committee Randall Huffmanto to withhold funding for the facility as a show of concern over the project's scope, cost and location.

The decisive vote highlighted nearly four hours of budget deliberations at Central Middle School that ended with all but 14 of 177 present members approving $361 million in town spending for 2006-07.

Architects of the approved budget touted it as a comprehensive spending plan that sets aside $63.5 million for capital projects to repair failing infrastructure and keeps taxes stable with a mill rate increase of 3.5 percent.

"This planning will ensure that we do not leave future generations with the burden that we shoulder today," said Peter Tesei, chairman of the Board of Estimate and Taxation.

A 67,400-square-foot public safety complex, which the town plans to break ground this summer on at Mason Street and Bruce Place, is the centerpiece of a 10-year capital plan. The three-story complex will replace a pair of crumbling buildings and consolidate the town's police, fire and ambulance corps into a single facility.

Next year's budget also includes large sums for the continued rehabilitation of Hamilton Avenue Magnet School, the Glenville School renovation, traffic calming and sidewalk construction and replacement of three substandard bridges on Comly Avenue, Palmer Hill Road and John Street.

To help pay for the projects and be able to set aside $3.5 million in a capital reserve fund, the budget's architects sought RTM approval for short-term borrowing.

Huffman led a separate unsuccessful effort to reject a measure that will require the town to issue $2.5 million in general obligation bonds in 2006-07, the first of seven straight years of borrowing for $114 million.

In his report to the full RTM, Huffman questioned the need for borrowing money, which proponents have said will leave the town with an estimated $50 million surplus in 2015-16.

"Is it really appropriate if you stuffed $1 million under your mattress to go out and buy a new stereo system with your credit card?" Huffman said.

Borrowing is an unpopular option that town officials have avoided since the 1930s. Advocates of pay-as-you-go budgeting discourage bonding for public projects because the interest adds to the tax burden.

The town has done some short-term borrowing, financing the $22 million purchase of the 75-acre Pomerance property in Cos Cob by selling five-year notes. It also borrowed about $16 million from a post-employment benefits account and about $10 million from its Parking Fund to pay for major renovations to Greenwich High School in the 1990s, repaying the debt over 10 years.

While Huffman's pair of proposals failed to gain traction during budget deliberations, a separate motion to remove $50,000 from the Fire Department's proposed $1.2 million budget for water passed 169-14.

RTM members said the Fire Department, which based its budget request on anticipated utility rate hikes, has historically run a surplus for water.

"Hopefully that appeases some of you who think we're bloated," Tesei told RTM members of the cut, eliciting groans from some of those in attendance. "We shed some water weight."