The challenge of drafting a budget for the next fiscal year

It’s a budget season to end all budget seasons, in its own gut-wrenching way. Those assembling the figures this year hope the world financial system will stabilize, if not start to recover, in the next year. But that doesn’t make it any easier for those toiling at the federal, state and local levels right now, trying to make the numbers work. That’s all the more reason to commend those who find a way to keep increases at bay while still serving the needs of their constituencies. And for those who need to try harder: avoiding the inevitable cuts will only result in making them further down the line.

Northwest Corner towns are defining their approaches while waiting for the approval of the state budget. Without knowing what funds are actually coming in from the state, it’s tough to be sure what expenses will be paid or unpaid with the help of state money. Yet the towns need to go forward, and their governing boards have done so with sharp pencils and clear ideas of those services their towns cannot do without.

In Kent, the selectmen, not easily but very responsibly, brought the budget in at a 1.7 percent decrease over last year. This they did while funding a professional consultant to work on the state-required town plan, as well as giving the town employees, except themselves, 2 percent raises. In addition, the town will continue to fund the state trooper program. This is especially important, since there has been a string of robberies in town, and one can only hope the support and the presence of the state trooper will help to deter criminal behavior of this kind in the near future.

The funding of a town planner shows real commitment to the long-term health of Kent. This is exactly the type of spending that is critical during a downturn. If the town had not decided to take a professional approach to planning its growth and in developing the way the town should look in future years, it would have been to the detriment of town residents for the next 10 years. Now, the discussion will have true direction, and the decisions made about the future vision of life in Kent will be much more easily defended and implemented.

In Salisbury, the town budget was whittled away by the selectmen until the budget increase year over year is now .7 percent. That’s point seven, a reasonable and manageable increase. This includes keeping the state trooper position funded, and having more than enough (if this past severe winter season is useful as a gauge) sand, salt and road crew hours budgeted to make it well through the snowy and icy months. Salisbury has several large projects planned, of course, including a new firehouse, the town grove building reconstruction and the transfer station project on the Luke-Fitting property, but that funding has been planned and targeted. That town needs to hope, and more than that, ensure that none of the planned funding which is in the form of state grants vaporizes as a result of the budget crisis in Hartford.

The Salisbury Board of Education, however, is proposing an increase of 2.43 percent over last year. This will include giving Salisbury Central School Principal Christopher Butwill a 3 percent salary increase, as well as honoring the contractual and union increases for other faculty and staff. It also includes keeping the size of the faculty the same, despite the fact that there is an opportunity to decrease its size by not replacing a retiring teacher. While some feel the school needs to keep class sizes to under 15 students, the result of decreasing the size of the faculty would result in either kindergarten or second-grade students being split into two classes, rather than three, that would still be fewer than 20 students each.

This would not be a hardship for either students or teachers. In fact, some studies have shown that class sizes which are too small can be detrimental to students’ educational experiences. A certain critical mass is necessary for students to have a better learning environment. This board needs to rethink such an increase in these hard times, when residents of their town are suffering layoffs and downsizing. Their patience will quickly wane with municipal spending that has not been addressed as completely as possible.

All Region One administrators, including Principal Butwill, should consider following Superintendent Patricia Chamberlain’s lead and refuse any raises this year. Chamberlain, while already quite highly paid as compared to others employed in the northwest Connecticut hills, still made a strong point by refusing any raise for the budget year. While this may seem only a symbolic gesture, such gestures will not be forgotten and are not lost on the public in bad economic times.

The dates and times of budget hearings for all the towns in Region One can be found on this newspaper’s town pages week to week as well as online at tcextra.com. These are public forums in which area residents should participate, since the decisions made on the town and school budgets will affect their pocketbooks in a very direct way for years to come. Now is the time to plan ahead and make manageable cuts in order to avoid making deeper ones later.