Budget workshop 3/26

The workshop started with Youth & Social Services. Michelle Piccirello is asking for an increase in hours for her "middle school coordinator." I asked the difference between this position and a guidance counselor at Dodd. She said it related to "socialization after school and on weekends." Fair enough, I suppose. It includes stuff such as organizing dances and other activities. Also, I think she's considering charging for an "alcohol awareness" program. I think this is a program that is offered by the state to substitute for other harsher punishment doled out to kids caught drinking... I see no reason why the town shouldn't charge for something like that. Finally, I was rather disappointed when the town manager suggested that he will probably request funding for an expansion of The Yellow House. He said that activity is increasing so much there, they'll need to expand. The unfortunate thing here is... we have a "youth center"... the Harmon J. Leonard Youth Center. And while I'm too young to have been around when it was built, my parents and others were not. In fact, they and others donated to its construction. And considering its current use... it's really disappointing to me and (I'm sure) to others who know its sad history. But that's a story unto itself. I'll try to tell that story some other time.

Next up was Senior Services. Doreen Pulisciano requested increases for dispatcher (19hrs/wk to 25hrs/wk) and program coordinator (25hrs/wk to 35hrs/wk). She said the increases for both were because of increases in use. As well, they would provide greater "coverage" for our seniors. Both of those things make sense to me, but... one thing that is a concern for me is the benefits. And not that I refuse to offer someone benefits, but I have to wonder about the purpose of town government... is it to provide services to residents or benefits to employees? And if the answer is to provide services to residents, then I wonder why we wouldn't do something such as... take the 19hr/wk dispatcher and change that to say... two 15hr/wk dispatchers? Then we'd have increased to 30hrs/wk of coverage. AND i think the cost would be less than that of a 25hr/wk employee. Of course, that's assuming that these hours are increased. I don't know if they will be. But Doreen did make a strong case for her own department's willingness to look for revenue sources other than Cheshire taxpayers. In fact, with an 06/07 appropriation of $339,000, she's added $147,000 to her budget through

1) in kind donations,
2) volunteer hours (based on minimum wage),
3) grant money (sr bus) and
4) user fees ($5/house).

I thought it was worth pointing out that 30% of her (grossed up) budget is generated through her department's internal efforts. (That's not to say that other department's don't do similar things... but I haven't seen them on paper.)

Then came The Pool. And there were positive points here, such as the fact that we're no longer routinely replacing $50 lightbulbs because of better engineering knowledge. As well, in the recent snowstorm, three "bubbles" collapsed in CT, but thankfully, not ours. And that was due to our increased knowledge and vigilance in maintaining the bubble. (Literally, our P&R guys were there, heating the bubble and clearing the snow from the side of the bubble so that the snow moved away from the bubble and didn't accumulate.) As well, the pool has had several successful events, such as movie nights, Dodd nights and has created a successful diving program. And one upcoming event will be on April 28... they're going to sponsor a Relay for Life fundraiser. Bottom line though to me... a $412,000 subsidy was too high last year and is still too high this year.

Parks & Rec came next. Bob Ceccolini mentioned that the proposed 90' diamond at Bartlem Park would be ready in 2008. His goal is to remove "the mound" and use it as fill at Mixville. Then we can kill two birds with one stone... creating two ballfields at the same time. Nonetheless, I mentioned my disappointment that the Bartlem field wasn't done yet, even though Rep. Al Adinolfi had secured money for those ballfields, perhaps, two years ago... I mean, how long does it take to get this stuff done? Anyway... the main ideas Mr. Ceccolini had for saving money were to eliminate lifeguards at Mixville (I don't see that happening) and to eliminate the long-standing Camp Sassacus and role it into Camp Quinnetukit at Bartlem Park. And I tend to doubt that will happen. I doubt it would happen because while it would save $6000 for 214 kids... I figure, you could more easily raise the fee by $30 and generate the additional $6000... than it would be shutdown the program.

Economic Development Commission (Jerry Sitko) followed. There was some talk about the West Main Street project and a new program called "Adopt-a-spot."

I stepped out of the meeting to pop by the Energy Commission meeting. In the few minutes I was gone, I missed the CPFA budget. Sorry about that.

Finally came the Town Council / Town Manager / Town Attorney budget. The highlights for me here were the request for $14,000 for an update to the Strategic Plan. I voiced my reluctance in supporting this. I'd prefer to use our boards and commissions to update it, although we'd still need someone to coordinate it. Also, there was discussion about the cable access channel. I tried to make it clear that while I think the cable access channel is extremely useful, I think the best thing we could do is to move to the web. My thinking is that we should get our Council meetings on the internet and broken down by agenda item... so... if you want to see the discussion about only one particular item, you can skip the rest of the meeting. PLUS... we could all start ripping and burning our own "choice" clips from the meetings, then post them on YouTube. Wouldn't that be fun? Also the budget includes a new "parking ticket enforcement officer." If I got it right, it's a lawyer who (once a month) performs a review of parking tickets with people. And last, but not least, the Town Manager requested a position change for a staffperson in his office at a cost of about $5,000/yr.

Ok... it's late. I'm done with this post.

Tim White
Town Council, Budget Committee