By Richard Kaufman and Anne White
As the coronavirus has spread across the world and the United States, cities and towns have had to adjust on the fly to an unprecedented situation, including an unprecedented fiscal reality.
Last Monday, the Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) approved a hold on budget increases across all town departments. The vote was tied at 6-6 along party lines, with BET chair Michael Mason using his tie breaking vote.
The move will keep operating budgets in town departments where they are in the current fiscal year budget. Increase requests that did not make it into the budget for next year include $367,471 by the police department; $143,011 by the fire department; $501,128 for Highways by the Department of Public Works; and $3 million for the Board of Education.
BET Democrat, Leslie Moriarty, said the decision to keep town departments to the current fiscal year was a “blunt approach.” Before the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent financial shut down of many businesses, the BET Budget Committee had recommended a $459 million budget with a 1.35 percent increase in the mill rate.
“By taking a blunt approach by moving every department back to fiscal 20, you are negating all of the work we’ve done, and we’re sending messages to managers that they need to live with not just a little bit less than what they had before, but significantly less than what they had before,” Moriarty said. “I think this methodology doesn’t do the BET justice, and I’d say we have a better way of handling this.”
BET member Karen Fassuliotis, said that holding the line is needed at this time.
“No one anticipated the pandemic or the shutdown of our economy. This is indeed a different budget than the one that was proposed by the budget committee, and one that reflects the economic times currently that we find ourselves in, and likely in the near future and the year ahead,” she said, noting that one in five Americans at the moment are unemployed.
BET Democrats said not allowing increases to Greenwich school budgets would be damaging.
Mason said the BET and Representative Town Meeting (RTM) can always use interim appropriations to address spending needs if they come up.
“I think the community has thought of interim appropriations as taboo. Well, the forefathers before us and many finance boards and town meeting members specifically carved out actions for things to be re-looked at at any time during a fiscal year,” he said. “There’s nothing on this page that we don’t have the resources to correct, replenish portions of, and some departments may need additional [funds]. We have that ability in front of us, and we’re not stopping after today in monitoring government.”
BET member, Debra Hess, agreed. “If things start going back to normal and we have all the after school activities and sports, we can always add money back into the budget, but we can’t take money away. That’s what I think about and what I grapple with,” said Hess. “When we have a bit more clarity, we can look at this in six months or nine months. I hope the world comes back to some level of normal that slightly resembles what it was like before, but we just don’t know. I just don’t want to be sitting here in a year or two from now and say we could’ve done more and we didn’t.”
In an open letter to Board of Education, Board of Estimation of Taxation and Board of Selectman, more than 81 residents asked town leaders to, “work in a bi-partisan fashion to make every effort to reduce the town budget to reflect the reality that the financial resources for the town’s taxpayers are intensely strained.”
Board member David Weisbrod said that the BET is unified in the fact that some changes to the initial recommended budget need to be made in light of the current financial situation, but that schools should be looked at differently.
Word that budgets would not be increased for Greenwich public schools caused many residents to voice their opposition in the form of a drive-by protest outside Town Hall last weekend.
BET member, Beth Krumeich, noted that she read scores of emails from parents who were in favor of the requested increase.
“Almost all of the other items in our budget can be moved and deferred. Children can’t be deferred. Children are spending time at home with their parents trying to work with teachers and stay on top of the work that needs to be done,” she said. “It’s very important for us to recognize that these decisions have consequences we can’t even begin to wrap our arms around because it’s the life of these children. It’s their education.”
Mason responded by saying the entire situation is difficult.
“We’re all struggling. I don’t think anyone enjoys the virus, I don’t think anyone enjoys making any of these decisions that, in essence, are very difficult judgement calls,” he said.
After a flat budget was approved by tie-breaking vote, Moriarty introduced a Democrat-supported motion to add $2.3 million in BOE funding, instead of the $3 million increase that was requested.
“Our community prides itself on excellent public schools. We pride ourselves on high real estate values which is driven by excellent public schools. We have problems we know we have to address. Money doesn’t solve all those problems, we do know that. But certainly the lack of funds will make them worse.”
That motion to increase the public school budget from the current fiscal year’s amount by $2.3 million failed along party lines, as well.
The BET did come together to add a capital appropriation of $100,000 to the budget for a special education study.
To review the actual Greenwich Public School budget and the Superintendent’s Proposed 2020/2021 Budget, visit https://go.boarddocs.com/ct/greenwich/Board.nsf/files/BHNQ7T673460/$file/FY21%20SUPT%20Budget%20Book%20110119.pdf online.
To review the BET documents, visit https://www.greenwichct.gov/460/Budget-Documents-Schedules online.
