The Westbrook City Council unanimously gave its initial approval to the city and school budgets with little fanfare at its meeting Monday night. The council will hold a final vote on the budgets on June 19.
Discussions of this year’s budget have gone much smoother than the previous two years when Mayor Bruce Chuluda and the council were at odds over the city’s budget. In his previous two proposed budgets, Chuluda said he was attempting to consolidate the city’s services, which required drastic cuts to positions and spending. The council tended to put the money back into the budget in most cases.
This year, Chuluda requested the city and school department staff develop budgets that kept overall spending increases to under 4 percent over last year, which they did. According to the administration and councilors, the budget offered to the council for approval was very lean and left little room for adjustments in committee.
The finance committee made very few changes to the budget but lowered the tax rate from a 92 cent increase to a 77 cent increase. If approved, the increase in the tax rate will equate to an average increase of just under $88 for homeowners in Westbrook.
The budget includes a $50,000 provision for the first half of a $100,000 citywide revaluation scheduled to be completed by July 2007. Absent is a provision for a curbside recycling program for the city, although the city did cut $32,000 from the trash collection budget by no longer collecting trash from apartment buildings with more than three units.
The city has effectively put on hold any decision about curbside recycling because Regional Waste Systems is considering changes to its recycling operations. The city council wants to wait to see what those changes are before investing in a program, according to City Council President Brendan Rielly.
The council will vote again on the budget at its June 19 meeting at 7 p.m. in Room 114 at Westbrook High School. In the meantime, Rielly said he and Councilor Ed Symbol would be drafting a summary of the budget that will summarize the changes made by the finance committee to Chuluda’s proposed budget.
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