West Hartford News

Proposed town budget has 7 percent increase

By: Gregory Hyman, Staff Writer

03/18/2008

Each year, throughout the year, the West Hartford Finance and Budget Committee works to draft a town budget proposal that maintains, or rolls over, the existing services and programs that the town operates, said Town Manager James Francis, who presented the 2009 town budget proposal to members of the Town Council last week.

Although the proposed 2009 budget is intended to maintain the status quo, this year's budget proposal represents an increase of more than $14 million - a nearly 7 percent increase - over the 2008 budget. Non-tax revenue is projected to increase by less than $33,000, said Francis, citing the state of the economy, higher conveyance tax rates and a drop in interest rates as factors.
During his presentation, Francis said that in order to support the budget, an 8.3 percent increase in property taxes would be required, for a total of almost $183 million. Residents would pay an average of about $7,362 in property taxes this year.
As in years past, existing municipal personnel salary costs and insurance and benefits make up the largest portion of the proposed budget. But, while the 2008 budget saw no new personnel requests, new personnel requests in the 2009 budget proposal would cost the town over $330,000. That price would cover, among other items, the hire of a new building maintenance employee, the hiring of police officers set to begin work sometime this year, and overtime pay costs meant to address traffic calming and enforcement. Ordinarily, most of the traffic divsion's regular time is spent investigating car accidents, said Francis.
Another significant change was the cost of utilities, especially electricity and natural gas. The town expects to spend over half a million dollars more on utilities than was spent for utilities last year.
In addition, town legal services costs are expected to increase by 76.6 percent.
"The biggest cause of that change is the lawsuit against Taubman," said Francis, speaking of the litigation the town is undertaking against the owners of the West Farms Mall.
Town improvement projects include those listed in the Capital Improvement Plan and capital non-recurring expenditures. Capital non-recurring expenditures account for $1,195,000 of the proposed budget, a 100 percent increase over last year. In order to fund the next two years of the Capital Improvement Project, the town would bond out over $12 million.
One of the anticipated Capital Improvement Plan expenses would fund a traffic calming project at a cost of $1 million.
Mayor Scott Slifka said the project is a new initiative, authored by Deputy Mayor Charles Coursey, that would implement non-traditional methods for enforcing traffic in town.
With proposed increases to budget spending and a town revaluation project still underway, what can all of this mean for the residents of West Hartford?
"Taxes will be different for every homeowner this year," said Slifka, who added that the town is working on a Web site tool that would help residents calculate the budget's impact upon their taxes, based on their property.
As of March 11, members of Town Council said they hoped to have the Web site operational by the end of the week.
Among efficiencies in the proposal was an attempt to consolidate town snow and ice services with those operated by the Board of Education's maintenance crew. By keeping contacted snow and ice services to a minimum, the consolidation resulted in a savings of more than $9,000. It is much cheaper to deal with snow and ice in-town, rather than contracting, said Francis.
Also successful was the town's implementation of an automated trash collection plan, said Francis.
"We've been fairly happy with implementation and the experience we've had with the project. It is an effecient way to collect refuse, and costs for the program were fairly reasonable - I think costs for collection were up only 1 percent," Francis said.
Until the budget is adopted on April 22, various town committees will meet weekly to discuss the budget. These meetings are open to the public. Members of the Town Council will also hold two public hearings, at which members of the community will have the opportunity to be heard on budget matters.
"I would encourage people to attend the hearings and make their comments known," Francis said.
Slifka said that telephone calls and emails about the budget are welcome during the weeks leading up to budget adoption.
For more information about the budget process, or for the schedule for meetings and hearings, visit the town Web site, http://www.west-hartford.com.