Residents question Hamden mayor’s budget proposal

March 28--HAMDEN -- The council chambers at Memorial Town Hall were next to empty Monday night, save for the three residents who came out to speak on the proposed 2017-18 town budget.

Mayor Curt Balzano Leng recently presented his $222 million budget to the Legislative Council, which held the public hearing on the town side of the budget Monday night. On Wednesday, it will do the same for the Board of Education's budget.

Michele Mastropetre, a member of the Planning and Zoning Commission, questioned the reason for some of the disparities in Leng's budget compared to the amount department heads requested.

For example, Leng's requested contribution to the pension fund is $100,000 less than the $17.8 million initially requested, Mastropetre said, and his contribution to the Connecticut Municipal Employees Retirement System, in which Hamden employees hired since 2007 participate, is $200,000 less than the initially proposed $2.3 million.

"We all want our taxes to go down," she said, "but we don't want to kick the can down the road."

Mastropetre also questioned other revenue estimates, such as $40,000 for tickets given out to motorists who pass a stopped school bus with its lights flashing. "Do we really think we are going to collect $40,000 for people passing school buses?" she asked.

There also was no revenue listed for Town Center Park, she said, and the workers' compensation account was cut from the proposed $2.5 million to $1.75 million.

The town risk managers tend to overfund that account, said Legislative Council President James Pascarella, who owns an insurance business. "We went though the numbers and thought the line was overstated," he said.

Resident Dan Garrett, a member of the Democratic Town Committee, said he doesn't believe Leng's proposed one-mill decrease will survive the budget process. "There's no guarantee we are going to receive the $10.4 million from the state that the mayor has included in his budget," Garrett said.

"Hamden has outstanding services but they are unsustainable and it needs to change," he said, suggesting the town eliminate one bulk pickup and the Christmas tree pickup, something that Councilwoman Marjorie Bonadies, R-9, had previously suggested.

He also questioned the fact that the town's top wage earners are consistently from the Police and Fire departments. "The top wage earner for the town is a police officer who earned $195,158 last year," Garrett said. "I can only imagine how many hours a week this officer worked to achieve this pay. I want our police officers who make life and death decisions to have adequate sleep."

Pascarella pointed out that much of the overtime earned by police officers is from side jobs that are paid for not by the town but by businesses that hire officers for projects.

Shepard Avenue resident George Levinson suggested that the police department is top heavy in leadership positions and the council could make cuts there.

"You are going to have to be the ones to say we have to cut some heads," he said. "We are overstaffed."

In the past eight years, the average property value has decreased by $35,000 while the taxes on the house have increased $1,600, Levinson said. "We are being squeezed and we will never recover as long as we see this trend," he said.

He credited Leng for proposing a budget that decreases the tax rate, but warned the council it will be their job to make it stick.

"It is up to you folks to make sure we see that one-mill decrease," Levinson said.

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