When I was elected to be First Selectman I promised to promote government efficiency and bring changes to our town. I promised to be a leader that would bring Seymour up to the year 2012. I promised to cut costs by finding ways we can be more efficient.
Some of you may have read the recent articles about the changes to our Town’s workforce, all of which were done without hiring any new staff.
I have created an Operations Department that will oversee the day-to-day operations of the town, including focus on all buildings and building officials, the Department of Public Works, the Senior Center, Recreation Department, Strand Theater, grants, and the Library.
I have restructured the Finance Department and given more supervisory responsibility to our Finance Director.
I have taken the HR Audit report’s recommendations and removed some supervisory responsibility from the First Selectman. All of these changes are in their final approval stages right now and will be implemented by July. Residents elected me to bring changes to our town government, and it is that I am doing.
The new initiatives I proposed into the 2012 – 2013 budget are to hire a human resources director, promote technology, and implement a roads program.
I am very hesitant to take the new initiatives out of the budget. While we know that these new initiatives are key in moving the town forward, we are also very aware of the current economic environment and the effects it is having on people.
Revaluation, as well as the loss of a significant amount of state funding, has made this a much more challenging budget process.
With that in mind, we have put into action many things designed to keep our costs down not only for this year, but for years to come. The increase in expenses on the municipal side of the budget is only 1.87 percent.
This increase is being driven by contractual obligations that we are required to meet, the new initiatives mentioned above, and the capital projects approved by the town in October 2011.
The only way to progress is to make changes.
We cannot keep blaming budgetary failures for keeping Seymour locked in the past.
There is always resistance when someone wants to make changes. This is understandable.
But we cannot have politics as usual. As I said in my campaign announcement speech, we have to stop acting like a small town with small town goals. I will not hold progress back and continue to allow the inactivity that we have been seeing for far too long.
Leadership matters and I will continue to lead the town in a positive and progressive direction.
I hope that you will support me in doing so.
W. Kurt Miller is the Republican First Selectman of Seymour
Seymour voters will vote on the proposed $51.7 million budget at a daylong referendum on May 30.
