Claremont
The new bottom line, approved in a 6-2 vote, with Councilor Bruce Temple and Mayor Charlene Lovett opposed and Assistant Mayor Vic Bergeron absent, was made after a final amendment from Councilor Allen Damren.
The council first approved a $111,900 increase to City Manager Guy Santagate’s $16.9 million budget to cover several items. The council then passed Damren’s recommendation to cut $50,000 off the $111,900 increase, leaving the decision up to the city manager on where to make the reductions.
In between those votes, Temple, who again issued storm warnings of some major expenses heading the city’s way next year, made a motion to cut $250,00 (1.5 percent) from the budget. The motion failed, 8-1.
“We can get a quarter million out of this budget,” Temple said. “Somehow it can be done.”
Temple said several times during the discussion that the council is turning a blind eye to the costs coming up for union contracts, Washington Street paving and more. He called motions to add $98,900 and then $111,900 “disturbing.”
“We’ve got big things coming along,” Temple said. “How can we take the manager’s budget and add more money to it?”
With uncertainty ahead and a “school budget that is out of control, I don’t know how we can conscientiously add more money,” he said.
Most councilors said, as they had before, that Temple made a lot of sense, but that they could not support such a drastic cut.
Councilor Nick Koloski warned that such a reduction would jeopardize progress in the city and put it in the same situation it was in when its infrastructure was not maintained.
“We can’t cut our way to prosperity,” Koloski said.
“I understand the need to cut but I don’t want to see us go backwards,” Councilor Scott Pope said.
Though the city manager will decide where to reduce the budget by $50,000, the council does not expect any cuts from expenditures it approved in a motion on Wednesday night that included $49,400 for firefighting gear, $40,000 for planning and development marketing, $6,500 for library technology and $13,000 for the parks department, offset by additional revenue from capital reserved of $41,000.
The council did receive some good news from Finance Director Mary Walter, who said estimated revenues for the fiscal year ending June 30 are estimated to come in $581,000 over budget and expenses will be $313,000 less for a combined increase of nearly $900,000, which will go into fund balance.
Damren opened the meeting with a list of cuts totaling about $100,000 but those recommendations were not considered by the council.
Also during the meeting, a pitch again was made to add $62,000 for a full-time maintenance person for the parks and community center department.
“It is critical to have a proper maintenance program,” said Jim Feleen, a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission.
Feleen said deferring maintenance is the wrong way to go, as evidenced by news Wednesday night from interim Public Works Director Scott Sweet, who said an aging underground pipe known as the Tyler Brook Corridor had collapsed in one section near APC Paper Company on Sullivan Street and a permanent repair could cost $1 million.
No one on the council made a motion to add the maintenance person and it was suggested the community center consider hiring a consultant to perform an efficiency audit and identify ways to improve maintenance at a lower cost.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
