During a hearing Tuesday, the Rindge Select Board trimmed more than $46,000 from the proposed budget for fiscal 2022, including cutting expected cost-of-living pay increases for town employees.
Requests from town department heads totaled approximately $4.74 million, a 7.1 percent increase from this year’s budget, but after the cuts, the board approved a budget of slightly less than $4.7 million. The meeting was a continuation from the budget hearing last week, where the board discovered a major budgeting error that had resulted in the pay for a police sargent being left out of the final tally. Approximately $100,000 was added back into the budget to cover the pay, insurance and retirement costs for the position.
Selectman Bob Hamilton said the initial proposed increase was too steep to swallow, and had surpassed the national increase in living costs. Members of the Budget Committee agreed, with member Phil Motta pointing out that last year’s proposal for the current budget – $4.5 million – failed at the polls when it was only $70,000 more than the default budget, and this proposal had an even bigger gap.
The default budget is made up of the previous year’s budget, minus one-time expenses, plus any contracted increases or increases approved through warrant articles at the previous Town Meeting. It goes into effect if residents do not approve the budget proposal, as was the case last year, meaning the current budget started at $4.43 million before being adjusted to $4.55 million.
The default budget for fiscal 2022 is expected to be about $4.5 million, meaning that even after the cuts, the final proposed budget approved by the board Tuesday was still approximately $150,000 higher.
“We can tell people why those increases are justified and important, but it’s still a concern they’re not going to vote for it,” Motta said.
Hamilton initially proposed cutting a quarter of 1% of operational costs across the board for every department that proposed an increase, which would have resulted in a $10,870 cut to the bottom line.
“I think the department heads can live with one-fourth of 1%. Everybody takes an equal hit,” Hamilton said.
Select Board Chair Karl Pruter said he liked that approach, but thought the cuts should go deeper. Ultimately, he said, his goal would be to get the budget under $4.72 million.
The board agreed to Hamilton’s proposed cuts, but doubled them, essentially taking a half-percent from operational costs – not taking into account fixed costs such as pay, contracts, or insurance – which totaled a $21,740 cut.
The board also agreed to cut $5,000 from the Welfare Department’s social agency support budget. The budget is used to donate funding to social services that residents in town use, but aren’t operated by the town itself. While the budget for that purpose wasn’t eliminated completely, it was cut by about a quarter.
The board also agreed to limit the cost-of-living pay increase for town employees. Town employees, by policy, have both a regular step increase based on their time with the town, which can include a pay increase of up to 4% based in part on merit. But the town also offers pay increases to keep in step with the increased cost of living, and Rindge bases its cost-of-living increase on the rate of the increase of Social Security payments, which in past years has ranged between 2 and 3 percent. However, this year, that increase was 5.9%.
The original proposed budget included that full cost-of-living increase, and the board considered proposals that included a 4% increase and a 3% increase – a difference of about $10,000. Ultimately, board members chose the 4% increase.
When board members asked Police Chief Rachel Malynowski and Department of Public Works Director Mike Cloutier, as department heads, whether they would prefer a lower increase in pay or cuts to their operating budget, both said they would put employees first.
“I’d rather give the money to the employees. I will bleed from the rock if I have to, but they need the raise,” Malynowski said.
Cloutier agreed, offering to cut the paving budget to preserve increases, noting that with the current budget a default budget, some of his workers had not received an increase in the past year-and-a-half, despite working through the pandemic.
“I would rather keep my crew, and do a little less paving,” Cloutier said.
When approving the final default budget, board members discussed whether cost-of-living increases and wage plan increases should be included. Ultimately, they agreed to include wage plan increases in the default budget, but not cost-of-living adjustments, which are evaluated by the board each year by policy, but not guaranteed.
Ashley Saari can be reached at 924-7172 ext. 244 or asaari@ledgertranscript.com. She’s on Twitter @AshleySaariMLT.