Board of Finance Eyes Lower Mill Rate, Higher Cuts in Packed Meeting

There wasn't much room to breathe in a packed Town Hall meeting room Tuesday night, providing some nice synchronicity with the two tight budgets being discussed.

More than 30 residents and town officials, including almost every member from the Boards of Education and Selectmen, turned out and stayed for the entirety of the two-hour Board of Finance discussion on the mill rate. While the board ultimately decided to mull the evening's proceedings overnight before finalizing their recommendations, they are eying a mill rate proposal in the range of 3.1 percent.

Such a mill rate, a two percent decrease from the 5.1 percent included in the current 2011 fiscal year proposal and presented at the recent public hearings, would mean an additional $1.7 million in cuts. There was some disagreement between board members as to how these cuts should be dispersed, but the general consensus seemed to be that $1.2 million should come from the school budget and the other $500,000 from the town's side.

Board members commended both the selectmen and the Board of Education for drafting lean budgets, but much of the discussion centered on concerns that built-in increases (contractually obligated raises and health care expenses, for example) are driving unsustainable year-over-year rises in costs. Andy Pforzheimer commented that only 15 percent of the entire budget is non-contractual, leaving the boards little room to curtail spending and keep property taxes low as a result.

"Last year, right around this time I remember making the point that we had a tough year and we had to get down to a low number and it seemed to me that a lot of those low numbers were hit with what I would call one shot mechanisms," Pforzheimer said Tuesday. "They were things that made an impact but not a systematic impact...I made the point a year ago that [doing that] was just going to come back and kick us in the butt this year and that's what it's doing."

Pforzheimer cited other area towns' proposed increases as examples that Wilton's current five percent proposal was too high; Weston is at 1.64 percent; New Canaan is at 3.27 percent for the town and 1.45 percent for its Board of Education; Ridgefield is at one percent for its Board of Education and .4 percent for its town budget; Darien is looking at a five percent mill rate increase that Pforzheimer said they find "unacceptable."

"We're stuck in a scenario where town revenues are set to go up 2 to 2.5 percent and expenses are lined up to increase 5 to 6 percent," which Pforzheimer and the other board members agreed was not viable over the long term.

Town revenues were also an unsettling topic of discussion, as Wilton CFO Sandra Dennies reported that the town has seen a stark drop in income from building permits and fees and investment revenue. Building permits, for instance, were estimated at $600,000 and are currently only at $240,000 with about three months left in the fiscal year. As a result, the town is having to curtail its expectations for next year as well as manage the consequences of the revenue deficit on the current budget.

Board member Al Alper, meanwhile, was vocal in his belief that the only way to combat the unsustainable but inexorable rise in yearly costs was to examine every portion of the town's operations to make sure things were being done as efficiently as possible. He said he realized that this was neither easy nor likely to pay immediate dividends, but said he believed there were substantial savings to be found in areas like heavy equipment pooling, regionalization of dispatching, senior, and library services, purchasing, HR, technology, and facilities management, all of which would benefit Wilton over the long term.

"You either have to accept a year over year five percent increase," Alper said, "or find a different way to deliver the same or better quality of services."

Ultimately, the board concluded their discussion by articulating what mill rate they believed would pass, if not necessarily be entirely agreeable with citizens. That 3.1 percent rate, should it be approved Wednesday night, may lead to staffing or salary reductions on both the Board of Education and Selectmen levels.

"You've got to look at pension adjustments, freezes in salary or reductions in staff," First Selectman Bill Brennan said of where future savings could come from. "The areas that we've already look at the closest, there's not much more to cut there."

The Board of Finance is scheduled to meet again on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. to continue their discussion.