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Community Corner

Killingworth Budget Down 2 Percent

Selectman propose $4.66 million budget for 2011-2012

Selectmen have crafted a 2011-12 budget proposal that slightly reduces operational expenses, while also making budget cuts to reduce spending in the current fiscal year.

The $4.66 million municipal budget proposed by selectmen for the next fiscal year calls for a $96,464 reduction in expenditures from current spending levels that is achieved principally by savings in health insurance costs and a host of small reductions throughout the spending plan, said First Selectwoman Catherine Iino.

Savings also are realized next year from the carry-over of reductions to the current budget approved by selectmen last month, including the elimination of a part-time position at the town’s transfer station and a clerk for the Killingworth Housing Partnership.

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Since the Water Pollution Control Authority has had no duties since the closing of the town’s sludge lagoons, selectmen relieved the commission of its duties and eliminated the WPCA clerk’s position.

Iino and Finance Director Regina Regalo said the changes will save more than $10,000 from the remainder of the current budget year, and substantially more in 2011-12.

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Iino described the move as motivated by ”fiscal prudence,” with the town facing an over-expenditure in its snow removal budget of some $35,000, the threat of reduced state revenues, and no growth in the value of the Grand List.

While undesignated surplus funds can be used to cover the overage in the snow removal account, Iino said the town also needs to preserve surplus to shore up its excellent bond rating.

In that respect, the budget will show a decline in debt expense with the last payment made on the modular office units at town hall, but Iino said it’s something of a false economy as the town will likely have to bond the cost of replacing them with a more suitable structure – or pay for renovations to keep the units in habitable condition.

It’s difficult to find budget savings while maintaining town services, Iino said. “We’ve been holding the budget so tight over the last three or four years that there’s no place left to find the money,” she said.

The new budget does call for 3 percent pay increases for some of the non-union town employees who have not had a raise for the past two years, but does not call for pay increases for Iino or the selectmen.

The proposed capital budget totals $700,000, with $673,424 of that amount encumbered for specific projects – town office building, fire equipment, revaluation, roads, and recreation fields - and the balance of nearly $25,000 to be added to unreserved and undesignated capital funds.

Iino said the proposed budget – now undergoing the scrutiny of the board of finance – has no tax consequences by itself, but it remains to be seen what the fiscal outcome will be when the town’s share of the Region 17 school budget is added to it.

Outgoing Region 17 Superintendent Gary Mala prepared a proposed school budget that would increase spending by 2.8 percent, but the district also will be returning surplus funds to the district towns that would reduce the eventual cost.

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