Monday, October 20, 2008 6:15 AM EDT
By Abbe Smith, Register Staff
WEST HAVEN — As the Allingtown Fire Department continues to battle budget woes, a commissioner who moved out of the district last month has been replaced.
Former Fire Commissioner Clement Diana has been replaced by Allingtown resident Ronald Walters.
The fire district’s two other commissioners, state Rep. Louis P. Esposito Jr., D-West Haven, and Charles M. Andreoli Sr., voted to appoint Walters to the position at a special meeting Sept. 23.
According to Allingtown Fire Chief Peter Massaro, notice of the special meeting was put up five days ahead of time and no one showed up to challenge Walters’ appointment.
In the meantime, commissioners and Massaro face the formidable task of putting together a budget that can win approval from a public already dissatisfied with the condition of the department’s finances.
Almost five months after Allingtown taxpayers rejected for a second time the commissioners’ proposed budget, which included a tax increase, the department is operating without an approved budget.
Commissioners and fire officials have been grappling with significant financial problems that were exacerbated when the district accepted and included in its budget a $400,000 overpayment from the city last year.
The district was forced to pay the money back to the city.
The “accounting error,” as city officials have described the overpayment, caused the fire district to go into the hole and resulted in the need for a tax increase, commissioners argued at the time, though unsuccessfully.
Late last week, Massaro said the commissioners are working hard on a new budget and should be ready to present it to voters sometime in early November.
Massaro also said firefighters agreed to forgo a raise this year in an effort to offset budgetary woes plaguing the department.
Commissioners also have made changes to some funds, such as the district’s life insurance plan, in order to save money.
“We are making a lot of changes,” he said.
Abbe Smith can be reached at asmith@nhregister.com or 789-5615.
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