EDITORIAL: Chief’s raise wallops fire district

05/24/2006

New Haven Register editorials

Steep pay boost out of step with West Haven budget cuts, tax increase. The 18.92 percent pay increase West Haven’s center fire district has approved for its chief adds one more reason why the city’s fire districts should be consolidated. William Johnson will now be paid $101,405 a year. And, he is just one of three fire chiefs in West Haven.

His secretary got a raise to $58,842.

The fire chief in the Allingtown District will earn $87,030 next year. In all, West Haven taxpayers are paying well over $200,000 for three fire chiefs when they can afford only one.

Johnson is certainly able, experienced and doubtless deserving of a raise. But almost 19 percent is out of line with the district’s overall budget increase of 3.25 percent.

Far worse is the signal it sends about fiscal responsibility at a time when taxpayers face, on average, estimated $800 to $1,000 increases in their tax bills, school spending has been cut for the coming year by $600,000 from its current level and the city has a budget deficit this year estimated at more than $11 million.

The money saved by paying just the one chief and office staff of a consolidated Fire Department would bring needed tax relief.

Sikorsky bridge

It is not often we get to note the completion of a major state highway project, so hats off to the Sikorsky Memorial Bridge. The white-knuckle ride on the old steel-decked bridge is just a memory. The new bridge is paved in asphalt and has six lanes for cars and trucks, plus a lane for bicycles and pedestrians. Some finishing work remains to be done, but the new bridge offers a far faster and safer ride than the old bridge. It has only taken 10 years and some $90 million to put a modern bridge over the Housatonic River to connect Milford with Stratford on Route 15.