Chicopee unveils budget for next year calling for 5.8% or $13 million increase [masslive.com]

CHICOPEE — The city’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year is calling for a 5.8% increase in spending with more than two-thirds of the additional money going to fund education.

Mayor John L. Vieau released his draft of the fiscal year 2024 budget to the City Council Wednesday. The $241,705,043 million proposal calls for an increase of $13.3 million over the current year’s budget which totaled 228,367,736.

The majority of the increase is going to the schools, which will receive an additional $9.4 million this year in part because of the state Student Opportunity Act that boosted school funding, especially in lower-income communities. The state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which pays for a little more than two-thirds of the budget, sets the minimum amount the city must spend on education, Vieau said.

The entire school budget will be about $113 million this year, Vieau said.

“We will continue to provide those essential services people expect,” Vieau said, describing his budget as conservative.

Along with continuing police and fire protection, trash and recycling pickup and funding education, the budget also ensures services continue for older adults and the library is adequately funded, he said.

Some of the biggest increases will go to the human resources department, which will see an additional $1.07 million mainly to fund increases in health insurance costs. Part of the increase will also go to create a new position that will focus on improving employee training citywide, Vieau said.

Human resources has struggled for years with employee turnover and hasn’t been able to hold onto a permanent director for more than 18 months at a time. On Tuesday, it was revealed that the city has continued to pay health insurance premiums to some employees, retirees and their dependents after they resigned from their jobs or died.

No one is certain how long the problem has been continuing or how much money it involves, but it began in the human resources department which oversees benefits for the about 2,800 employees. Vieau said the city has hired an independent auditor to do the painstaking work to reconcile the books and is working with the health insurance provider to try to get reimbursed for the benefits paid in error.

The budget also calls for a nearly $430,000 increase in the police department’s budget. Some of that will go to raises but about $335,000 of it will pay the city’s share of the WESTCOMM regional dispatch system, which joins together police and fire departments in five communities, he said.

In previous years, the state has subsidized the system to encourage departments to join together. City police officials however said it benefits public safety because they no longer have to take officers off the street to do dispatch, especially at a time when it is more difficult to fill the positions.

Some of the other increases will be seen in the city’s technology department budget, which will be hiked by $338,474. The maintenance department’s budget will also grow by $314,000 but part of that is due to an accounting move since the city has removed maintenance from budgets whose department has a separate building, such as the police department and the library, Vieau said.

City Council President Frank N. Laflamme said he has already scheduled special meetings on the budget for June 22, 26 and 27. Each will begin at 6 p.m. After reviewing spending with each department head, the council is expected to adopt a budget at the June 27 meeting.

The fiscal year begins on July 1 so a budget must be in place before then.

Vieau said part of his budget planning is designed to prepare for several upcoming capital projects including the second phase of City Hall improvements, construction of a new Anna Barry School, the project to remove the Bemis Pond dams and restore Abbey Brook at Szot Park and the ongoing need to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant and separate sewer and storm drain pipes, which are mandated by the federal government.

In April the city received $28 million in free cash — which is money raised in taxes from the previous year but was not spent — partially because it took a $10 million standard deduction loss from the federal pandemic relief funds that then goes to the general fund.

The City Council voted to support Vieau’s proposals to set aside $3 million to defray the amount it must collect from taxpayers to support the fiscal year 2024 budget. It also set aside $2 million in capital projects fund that will pay for larger expenses such as police cruisers.

The largest amount of $10 million went to beef up the stabilization fund to $18.9 million. Having a fund that is close to 10% of the city’s budget will lower the interest rates when the city takes out long-term loans for projects like the new school, he said.

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