Seymour Selectmen on Tuesday moved to allocate nearly $200,000 in federal reimbursement money to better prepare the town for future storms.
The cash came from FEMA, to reimburse the town for expenses incurred during two 2011 storms, Tropical Storm Irene and a freak late October snowstorm.
FEMA gave Seymour about $194,000 for reimbursement of 75 percent of various expenses the town incurred during the storms.
First Selectman Kurt Miller said he reached out to departments affected by having to react to such emergencies — like the police department and public works — and asked for input on what the town could spend on to better prepare for the future.
“One of the things we wanted to do was use this found money to go directly towards things that would benefit the town of Seymour for other emergencies,” Miller said.
After sifting through the requests with other officials, Miller proposed allocating the money thus:
- $24,700 to remove trees at the middle school, the town’s shelter for emergencies, where trees often fall during storms
- $8,000 for public works for tree work
- $35,600 to repair generators at the public works, fire, and police departments and hook up a generator at Town Hall
- $40,000 on police overtime
- $10,000 on public works overtime
- $11,993 to the ambulance to replace salaries expended during the storm
- $11,450 to the fire department to buy various equipment
- $12,838 to the emergency management department for various expenses
- $44,768 to the public works department for equipment, including a new bucket truck.
Those figures add up to $5,000 and change more than the $194,000 reimbursed to the town, a shortfall pointed out by Selectman Gary Bruce.
“These are all great things should we see another catastrophe in the future, but just to spend money because it’s there doesn’t necessarily mean that that has to happen,” Bruce said.
Miller said some of the numbers reflect estimates and that the town will probably not spend the total amount indicated.
“Some of these estimates are higher than expected,” Miller said. “The shortfall will probably be consumed, or eaten up, by savings.”
“I would suggest that we do not have any shortfall and that we work within the means of whatever we’ve been reimbursed,” Bruce replied.
Selectman voted 6 – 1 to allocate the money, with Bruce voting no.
Bruce said after the meeting that he couldn’t be sure the town would have to dip into its fund balance if expenses somehow came back higher than the estimates, and didn’t want to chance it.
Miller said he’d monitor how the money is being spent and alert Selectmen if there’s a danger of a shortfall.
Selectmen scheduled a town meeting for Feb. 5 at 6:30 p.m. in Town Hall for residents to approve or reject allocating the cash. The Board of Finance also has to approve the measure.
Miller credited the departments affected with being able to live within their means in the wake of the two storms, and said the town would probably go through a similar process for as-yet-undetermined federal reimbursement from Sandy, the “Frankenstorm” that battered the Northeast last fall.
“The departments did a very good job working within their budgets, controlling some very difficult decisions making sure they didn’t go over (their budgets),” Miller said. “We’re going to see the same thing next year as well, from the previous storm that we just had.”
