Committee trims city budgets
|
|
Rutland City Police Officers Steven Schutt (left) and Michael Nesshoever speak through the windows of their cruisers in downtown Rutland on Monday while on patrol. Cassandra Hotaling / Rutland Herald |
Toolbox
By STEPHANIE M. PETERS STAFF WRITER - Published: June 23, 2009
The city's police and fire chiefs found themselves before an affable Public Safety Committee on Monday night, as they explained their budgets during a line-by-line review.
Combined, the city's police and fire departments are seeking $7.3 million to cover their operations. With much of that tied into fixed costs such as payroll, however, the aldermen found little to cut.
In total, they shaved $4,186 from the proposals.
Chief Robert Schlacter presented his $2,869,574 budget first. The committee quickly applied the same treatment to Schlacter's built-in cost-of-living adjustment increase that other department heads have received, cutting it by $2,959 to account only for the increased cost of his health-care premium. In conjunction, the line item for the Federal Insurance Contribution Act and Medicare taxes was also reduced by $227, bringing the budget that the committee eventually approved to $2,866,388.
That figure still represents a $63,000 increase over the current year's budget.
Expenses on the rise in the proposed budget include a $10,000 increase in overtime costs due to salary increases that brings overtime costs to $165,000, a $12,000 increase in a line item classified as "overtime — training" that Schlacter explained will be covered by grant funding, and a $28,000 increase in overtime costs for replacements and substitute firefighters.
Schlacter explained that expenses for substitutes are up per the recent resolution of an unfair labor practice charge that will allow the city to fill the seventh firefighter slot in the department's shifts with a part-timer when necessary, since budget constraints do not allow for new hires. Three firefighters who left the department in the past year have not been replaced.
The department also saw a $52,000 rise in its workers' compensation costs, which are on the rise both throughout the city's departments and nationally. On the police department side, workers' compensation costs will rise by $28,000 next year. Still, in both budgets, costs such as fuel oil, gasoline and diesel are down substantially, to the tune of $14,576 for the fire department and $29,100 for the police department.
The fire budget's rescue supplies line item generated the most conversation. Though level funded at $2,000, Schlacter explained it includes $1,200 for the purchase of lighter equipment for fighting wild fires — particularly in Mendon — that he and the mayor would like to see purchased from the $60,000 Mendon pays for the fire department's services.
"We feel we need this," Schlacter said. "The city has a lot of land in Mendon where we might be called upon to fight a fire."
In a meeting that lasted only an hour, the conversation about the police department's budget was even shorter.
Only $1,000 from the $6,600 travel line item was cut, bringing the police department's budget to $4,469,326. That figure is down from the current year's $4,580,836 budget in large part because of the loss of three employees during the past year.
Preempting a question from Alderwoman Sharon Davis about the department's structure, Police Chief Anthony Bossi explained that with three losses the department has cut two of its three school resource officers — the cost of the third is reimbursed by the school district — and eliminated its community policing position, although Officer Tim Tuttle will act in that capacity. Funding for community policing in this budget was reduced from $3,000 to $1,000.
"Short term there's not much impact," Bossi said in reference to those changes and the department's current beat coverage. "Long term, there is. If we continue to lose people then it could become detrimental."
Bossi said the department has one person who will be eligible for retirement this year, but he believes that person will remain another year.
The committee also approved, unaltered, a $94,000 traffic budget and a $170,890 parking meter fund budget.
stephanie.peters@rutlandherald.com
35