After Mayor Bruce Chuluda and the City Council battled over the last two budgets, the mayor and the council seem to have come to a middle ground on this year’s budget, which both sides consider very lean.
The finance committee has made very few changes to the budget presented by Chuluda. The committee will meet again tonight, May 31, for their final session, in which they are expected to revisit a few final items and send the budget onto the full committee.
The budget, if approved as is by the finance committee will move to the full council with a tax rate increase of 77 cents, down from the 92 cents in the mayor’s proposed budget.
“It’s a very lean budget, one of the leanest budgets I’ve ever encountered on the council,” said Councilor John O’Hara, who said there wasn’t a lot to change because everything was either flat-funded or not significantly increased. “If we were fat, dumb and happy and we were rolling in dough, we’d probably debate things more. There weren’t many goodies in the budget.”
So far, the finance committee has reduced the budget by about $23,000, although that number will likely change. The committee is expected to put back another $25,000 it was hoping to defer to next year’s budget to pay for the $100,000 citywide revaluation, which will be completed by July 2007. The tax rate increase includes the reinstatement of the $25,000 into this year’s budget.
“The revaluation has to be done,” said Committee Chairman Ed Symbol, who said he thought the city has put it off as long as it could. “If it has to be done, it has to be done.”
The revaluation has O’Hara worried, separate of its impact on the budget. He said he thinks a revaluation will increase property taxes for most Westbrook homeowners because the value of their homes will likely increase. He isn’t opposed to putting back the $25,000 the committee pushed back to next year’s budget.
A major cut the made by the finance committee in the last two weeks was to trash collection. Although the council has effectively put on hold any decision on a curbside recycling program for the city, it reduced spending for trash pick-up by $32,000. That money comes from the city stopping the collection of trash from apartment buildings with more than three units. The city currently collects trash from apartment buildings up to 10 units.
“I don’t think we should be collecting trash from commercial properties,” said Symbol. “If you have 10 units, that’s a business, not a house.”
City Council President Brendan Rielly said Regional Waste Systems is considering changes to its recycling operations, and until that decision is made, the council will wait before making any final decision on a recycling program. Symbol agreed, saying he expected Regional Waste Systems to make a decision in the spring 2007, after which the committee could go forward with a program.
Rielly said in the meantime, he plans to form a residents’ committee to “report to the council with ideas on how we can improve recycling and trash disposal.”
Symbol said he would be making a motion to transfer $50,000 set aside for an open space study to create a Westbrook public building maintenance reserve. He said the city spent $4,500 on city hall this year and he’d like to see money set aside for maintenance costs every year.
Changes to the price of building permits are expected to bring the city an additional $25,000 in revenue if approved by the council. Building permit rates will go up from $9 per $1,000 to $10 per $1,000 and minimum fees will go from $25 to $30. Revenue is also expected to increase by $5,000 through increases in subdivision, site plan and zone changes rates.
Rielly said the council would prepare a budget message for the residents of Westbrook. “It will discuss or goals with this budget, what we tried to achieve, our successes and failures with the budget,” he said.
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