Fairfield budget proposed with 1.3% tax hike

FAIRFIELD -- After promising a budget proposal for 2010-11 with little to no increase, First Selectman Kenneth Flatto on Monday unveiled a plan that, left unchanged by town boards, would mean a 1.3 percent tax increase in the new fiscal year.

"It is difficult, but we're trying our best," Flatto said at an afternoon news conference. He said it is the lowest tax increase in a decade.

Under his proposal, the town's operating budget would increase from the current $75.3 million to $77.3 million and the Board of Education's spending plan would rise from $139.5 million to $141.5 million. With retiree benefits and debt service, the municipal budget would total $251 million as of the July 1 start of the new fiscal year

Flatto said while the school budget he's put forth is less than the $144.5 million the Board of Education requested, he noted the school district gets money from other funding sources, such as the state and federal governments not included in their budget. "They do have external places to look," he said.

His proposal gives the school system $2 million more than its current budget. Though town bodies cannot tell the school board where to cut its budget, Flatto said the town's entire school enrollment will increase less than 1 percent, but the budget request asked for 30 new positions. That 1 percent, he said, should relate to only 13 additional positions.

"I think this gives them some flexibility for some small staff adjustments," Flatto said, "but I don't think it's fair to ask for significantly more staff because they'd like to have it. We're not asking our school district to cut staff ... we have an excellent student-to-teacher ratio."

On the town side of the ledger, Flatto said, "We are limiting our operations to essential operations."

Funding of the retiree benefits and the pension funds takes a $3 million bite out of the budget, he said, and they expect about a 7 percent increase in insurance costs for current employees.

Town officials expect a "modest increase" in revenues, and Flatto said the budget proposal does not include money for cost-of-living increases for union employees.

The town is preparing to negotiate new contracts with all its unions, and those contracts are not expected to be done prior to the budget's adoption. Funds are included for contractual step increases. "My hope is the collective bargaining will end up providing more savings," the first selectman said.

"It's an austere budget," he said, and to make cuts any deeper would mean a cut in services provided by the town.