What Items Contribute To The Increase In The Town Budget?

for fiscal year 2012-2013 which begins July 1, 2012 is $14,951,364. That amount equals $662,579 or 4.64 percent above current spending.

What specific items have led to the increase in the budget?

Patch sat down with First Selectman Willie Fritz to get the details.

Police pension = $273,000 increase.  This is an annual required contribution that is calculated by an actuary (a person who deals with the financial impact of risk and uncertainty). The increase equates to monies lost due to the effects of a downturned economy and recession of the years past, specifically years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

"We shoot for an 8 percent return on investment and that didn’t happen," said Fritz. "This $273,000 is a one-time increase to offset the lack of funds not achieved in this economy."

Municipal Employee Retirement Fund = $100,000 increase.  This is a retirement fund for all town employees (except elected town employees) required by state statute. The state of Connecticut has increased the percent of base pay required for the retirement fund from 7 percent to 11.5 percent this year.  This is similar to a state managed 401K for town employees. This is not the police pension – they have their own.

Police Department salaries = $150,000 increase.  The police department, composed of 22 people, went for three years without a contract or salary increase. This $150,000 represents retroactive funds.  In a normal situation, one-third of this amount would have been spread out over the past three years resulting in an increase of $50,000 each budget fiscal year, said Fritz. "Now we are seeing this all at once," said Fritz.

The Library = $100,000 increase.  As we all know, the Board of Finance .  The library director requested an increase of $173,000 in their operating expenses for the upcoming fiscal year. The Board of Selectmen restored $100,000 of their request but not $73,000.

Capital requests = $74,000 increase.  Capital improvement requests for the upcoming fiscal year began at $1.18 million and was reduced to $552,000. The current budget on capital requests is $478,000.