Mandated costs bloat police budget plan

03/16/2007

By Jacqueline Manning , The Bristol Press

SOUTHINGTON - Faced with increased heart and hypertension claims and retroactive raises, the Police Department is seeking a 23.6 percent increase in its budget.
Both the police and highway departments presented their proposed 2007-08 budgets to the Finance Board for review at its meeting Wednesday.
The police department submitted a request of $3,202,360 for the upcoming fiscal year. The proposed increase is $1,494,244, up 23.63 percent from last year's approved budget of $1,708,116. The hikes stem from an additional $419,422 in additional state- mandated heart and hypertension claims and $1,161,500 in retroactive raises for officers. A recent arbitration ruling said the town owes pay increases going back three years.
The highway department submitted a budget request of $2,325,655 for the 2007-08 fiscal year, a 6.29 percent increase from the 2006/2007 approved budget of $2,193,268.
Earlier this month, the Board of Education submitted a proposed operating budget of $74,029,451 million for the 2007-' fiscal year, an 8.33 percent increase from the 2006-'07 approved $69,564,078 fiscal plan.
Before the school board held two budget workshops, the original figure rang in at $74,957,762, a 7.75 percent increase. After the workshops, the board adjusted the budget down by $928,311, resulting in a final increase request of 6.42 percent.
The total amount of the town's proposed budget is $115,343,836, an 11.94 percent increase from the prior year. If the combined budgets were approved as is, $74,029,451 for the school board and $41,314,385 on the general government end, tax levy would jump 2.34 mills from its present rate of 21.40 mills.
Finance Board member Glenn Klocko said the panel could look to cut from capital requests such makes the the vehicles and equipment more vulnerable to repairs reparable and delay their inevitable replacement.
Klocko said the Democrats on the finance panel have been discussing an alternative approach and plans to present the idea to the Republican members.
"Depending on the mill-rate impact, we may look to bring the budget back to last year's spending levels with the exception of salaries, benefits, mandatory contractual agreements and state man dates," Klocko said. "Then we'd look to add as we feel necessary."
Klocko added that the ramifications of this approach would mean the town would have to rely heavily on the individual departments to find efficiency at prior funding levels, which would be a great challenge.