Cristina A. Ross

Town Council Approves 5% Budget Increase; Last-Minute Reductions to Board of Ed, Library Spending Requests

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The Town Council last week approved a budget for next fiscal year of about $175 million, an approximately 5% increase over current spending. The figure includes a Board of Education operating budget of about $91.5 million, up about 3.7% year-over-year. During a meeting held April 2, members of the legislative body in a divided vote made reductions to the Board of Ed ($250,000) and New Canaan Library ($107,000) spending requests for fiscal year 2025. In proposing the Board of Ed cut, Councilman Rita Bettino said that she was wary about adding fixed costs in the form of 13 staff positions to the district following a town-wide revaluation that could see significant increases in taxes for some, depending on the mill rate. 

While the positions that the district is adding “don’t add up to $1 million necessarily, they are ongoing costs and they don’t go away and they just get built upon, going further,” Bettino said at the meeting, held in Town Hall and via videoconference. 

She added, “I’m just uncomfortable adding any more ongoing expenses than I believe are necessary. It’s not just the salaries.

Opinion

Letter to the Editor

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NewCanaanite.com recently received the following letter(s). Email editor@newcanaanite.com to publish your letter here. 

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Dear Board of Selectmen, Members of the Town Council and Members of the Board of Finance, 

As members of the Board of Meals On Wheels of New Canaan, we echo the sentiments expressed by Irene’s Hendricks in her letter to the New Canaanite on February 29, 2024. 

We were disheartened to see the comments by our First Selectman, and the subsequent proposed budget, regarding reducing or cutting funds to the Health and Human Services budget for the upcoming fiscal year. 

Meals on Wheels of New Canaan is a volunteer based organization that solely relies on the generous donations of our neighbors, the town and approved grants. Demand for MOW services has increased significantly in recent years. We delivered 1,000 more meals during the past 12 months versus the year prior. We are serving 107 individuals up 31% from a year ago.

Opinion

Letter to the Editor

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NewCanaanite.com recently received the following letter(s). Email editor@newcanaanite.com to publish your letter here. 

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I’m writing today to strongly advocate that we do not reduce town funding to Health and Human Services during this budget period. Our Grand List is up 23.6%; $750,000 of ARPA funds are being transferred into our town’s General Fund. Our Board of Selectmen have approved a $176.8 Million budget up 6.09% year over year, with increases driven by a variety of factors including inflation, health insurance, school staffing, and information technology. 

At the same time, there is an interest in finding savings to offset these headwinds. As taxpayers, we of course have interest in these savings.

Albe Bassett

‘This Is Not a Best Practice’: Fire Commission Pushes Back on Removal of Funding for Assistant Chief

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Saying it’s a matter of public safety, members of the municipal body that oversees the New Canaan Fire Department are calling for the town to re-add funding for an assistant chief position in the agency. The Board of Selectmen following a back-and-forth with Fire Chief Albe Bassett removed a request for $121,000 in salary for the full-time assistant chief position in January, during the first major phase of the fiscal year 2025 budget process. (The job would also come with a benefits package that town Human Resources officials put at about 40% of the salary.)

After Bassett submitted a memo to the Board of Selectmen saying he could try to make do with $71,000 in overtime that would go to line officers in lieu of the full-time assistant chief, the selectmen did add a $50,000 overtime line item to the Fire Department’s budget (which still must be approved by the Board of Finance and Town Council). In the memo, obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request, Bassett listed five duties that cannot be filled by line officers “on a 24/7 basis.” They include representing the chief as needed, supervising the other line officers, HR functions such as negotiations, budget-related work and fire marshal duties. Members of the Fire Commission during a special meeting held Feb.

Albe Bassett

Fire Department Eyes Improved Rescue Capabilities After Contractor’s Death on Valley Road

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New Canaan’s fire chief said last week that the recent death of a contractor doing excavation work on Valley Road has the department looking again at its rescue capabilities. 

Though the department was at the job site at Silver Hill Hospital on Friday, Dec. 22 and pulled the man out in 15 minutes following a trench collapse, he perished from internal wounds sustained at the time of the accident, according to Fire Chief Albe Bassett. The man “happened to be working on a fire protection line for one of their [the hospital’s] buildings which they—unfortunately—they can’t shut it off, so they were doing an emergency repair and the worker was struck and trapped by dirt inside the hole, about 12 feet down,” Bassett said during a special budget-related meeting of the Fire Commission, held Feb. 8 via videoconference. That’s “a very challenging rescue for any fire service, but for us with lack of equipment and staffing it was much more difficult,” the fire chief said.