Selectmen Seek ‘Zero’ School Budget Increase

CHESTER:

    The Board of Selectmen met last week with representatives of the town’s Board of Education and gave it the same message it gave the Region 4 Board of Education.

    “We want to see a zero dollar increase in operating expenses in the next fiscal year,” First Selectman Thomas Marsh said.

    The boards of education and town departments are beginning to consider their budget proposals for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

    “This is a difficult charge to give any board or department, whether a school board or a town department, but in these economic times, we don’t believe we can go to taxpayers with a tax increase,” Marsh explained.

    The selectmen are looking down the road at a worsening economy and a growing state budget deficit. Each increase in the state deficit brings with it the increased likelihood that state revenues to municipalities will suffer in the next fiscal year.

    “We don’t know what, if any, state revenues will be affected. We do, however, have a healthy fund balance and the advantage of being a small town is that we have greater direct control over our expenses,” Marsh said.

    “The selectmen were clear in our discussion. If a zero increase means reductions, the selectmen will not tell the school board how or where to make cuts. That is their job. They do, however, know what our expectations are,” he added.

    For school boards and municipalities, putting together fiscal year budgets often involve predicting the future because the process begins months in advance of the beginning of a fiscal year. Budgets must be developed, reviewed by school boards, boards of selectmen and finance, brought before public hearings, and then to votes at town meetings or referendums–and it all takes several months.

    As boards and departments are beginning to pull together budget numbers today, Marsh worries, “things really do look like they are getting bad” for the general economy. He is seeing it in his private business and he is hearing about it from other business sectors.

    By far the town’s major source of revenue is taxes. The first selectman said he checked on the tax collection rate recently and found it to be very good.

    “The tax collection rate to date is 56 percent with the first half of taxes paid and some back taxes. The second half of taxes is due in January. If we get to January and see a drop off in payments, we’ll have a better indication of how the economy is affecting residents,” he said.

    Marsh believes that if the town budget and the two education budgets can successfully establish bare minimum proposals for the next fiscal year, proposals that will mean zero dollar increases in operating budgets and require no tax increases, then if or when the economy begins to come back they can slowly and carefully add back services.

    “That would be our hope,” he said.