Members of Shelton’s Board of Apportionment and Taxation want to see some changes.
Not in the bottom line of the budget they passed on to the Board of Aldermen Thursday, though a $228,044 shortfall in state grants necessitated some 11th-hour rearranging.
The budget — totaling $113,118,710, it now goes to the Board of Aldermen, which must adopt a plan by May 15 — would result in a mill rate of 21.85, the same as that proposed by Mayor Mark Lauretti last month.
But in analyzing the past several years, members of the Board of Apportionment and Taxation determined that while actual city spending remained flat, the budgets had unspent money that ranged from $4.1 to $5.7 million.
That’s because the budgets often included money that is never actually spent by the department heads responsible.
In the words of board member Wayne Bragg, “We’re giving them a budget and then taking part of it back.”
It’s a practice Lauretti, after he presented his budget proposal last month, said gives the city the ability to deal with unforeseen circumstances that arise over the course of the year.
But Bragg and other members said Thursday that such “budget slack” overstates expenses at the cost of frustrating city employees.
“This practice puts a burden on our department heads and staff,” said Jimmy Tickey, the board’s vice chair. “When it becomes common practice, it becomes clear there would be a better way to handle this that would be more effective.”
So in crafting the proposal passed unanimously by the board Tuesday and presented Thursday, the board recommended putting more money into the city’s general contingency fund to give the budget more transparency.
The total amount recommended — $316,254, an increase of $66,254 over the amount requested for the account by Lauretti — isn’t much to sneeze at given past surpluses ranging into the millions of dollars.
Tickey said after the meeting that while the board initially wanted to fund the account more, the last-minute state grant shortfall necessitated a more modest proposal.
In addition, he said the figure represented a political compromise between the board’s three Republicans and three Democrats.
“It’s not an end-all be-all,” Tickey said. “This is a step, a progression.”
“I just think that this is a change that is really, really necessary to give us all better control,” is how Bragg, a former controller at Sikorsky Aircraft with decades of corporate accounting experience, put it. “We tried to look at this through a business lens and not a partisan lens.”
“Our strategy was not to get caught up in the differences between our sides,” Board Chairman Chris Besescheck said.
Asked after the meeting whether he is confident the city’s aldermen will heed his board’s recommendation even though Lauretti’s administration has been doing things a certain way for more than 20 years, Besescheck first lauded the “great job” the mayor has done over the years, but said that “things change.”
And when the $228,044 shortfall hit the board during what was to be its final night of deliberations last week, he said that convinced board members that such a contingency fund would be a good approach going forward “because there’s so much uncertainty now.”
Board member Judson Crawford called on aldermen to “pass the budget in the same bipartisan manner” as his board, though he said “there will no doubt be further refinements and improvements.”
Specific details about the expense side of the plan were unavailable Thursday night because of a printing error that needed to be corrected, according to board members.
The corrected version will be available Friday, they said.
Though the mill rate would go up from the current rate of 18.57 mills nearly 18 percent to 21.85, most residential property owners would see their tax bills decrease because of a revaluation that dropped the city’s grand list by nearly $770 million.
The reallocations necessary to address the shortfall were reductions made mostly where past spending levels showed a pattern of surpluses in various accounts.
When Lauretti proposed his budget last month, he said employment levels would remain constant and that the city will be able to make some investments in road repairs, fire and police vehicles, and fire and police communication systems.
The mayor’s budget also trimmed planned school spending $500,000 from the $64.3 million requested by the Board of Education in December, though Lauretti said he would restore $285,000 if the school board eliminated its controversial “pay to participate” program.
Tickey said his board endorsed the same amount of school spending recommended by Lauretti but noted the mayor’s offer is “still on the table.”
