The figures are staggering, and thats just the number of days (3) and hours (7.5) that were required for the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) to sign off on the Towns fiscal 2011 budget.
When the RTM finally adjourned Tuesday nights meeting at Osborn Hill School, the first 40 minutes of Wednesday morning had become history. Weve had long meetings in the past, but this is the first time weve had them two nights in a row, a bleary-eyed First Selectman Kenneth Flatto said following his first morning coffee. Its never happened, at least in my memory.
After a seemingly never-ending succession of amendments and votes, the RTM sliced another $193,609 from the proposed budget Tuesday night and adopted a $251.5 million town budget for 2010-2011, which takes effect July 1.
One of the most controversial items on the agenda was the proposed reduction of $137,826 in the police budget, but the RTM after listening to strong arguments from Chief Dave Peck, Deputy Chief Gary McNamara, Brenda Kupchick (R-6) and Flatto restored $89,000, which will allow the department to hire another detective.
Peck, whose retirement takes effect May 31, cited the rise in Fairfields crime rate in the past year. Economic downturns seem to go hand-in-hand with increases in home and auto break-ins, and that was the case in town, especially in the Stratfield section. White-collar crime, he said, had an up-tick and Internet fraud has exploded.
Flatto pointed out that Fairfields police department is thinly staffed when matched with communities of comparative size in Connecticut. For example, Greenwich, a town of 61,000, has 155 officers on staff; East Hartford (48,000) has 135 officers, and West Hartford (60,000) has 120. Fairfield has been making do with 108 to 106 officers for the past decade or more.
Safety trumps everything else, said Kupchick, chair of the RTM Health and Safety Committee. If we dont feel safe in our own neighborhoods, then Fairfield loses what makes us special.
Several members of the public voted their displeasure with the cuts to the public safety budgets and deplored the Board of Education's seemingly hefty annual increases. "We make our police chief and fire chief come here and beg for pennies," said one woman. Jerry Daniello, who resides on Shrub Oak Lane, harrumphed, "The Board of Ed (budget) gets a pass." The latter comment elicited a round of applause.
The tax rate required to finance a $251.5 million town budget equates to 19.27 mills, or $19.27 for every $1,000 of assessed property value. Those figures are based on documents from Chief Fiscal Officer Paul Hiller.
The Town's Board of Finance, an elected group of nine volunteer residents chaired by Tom Flynn (R), is scheduled to officially set the tax rate for 2010-11 this evening at 8 in the Education Center, 501 Kings Highway East.
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