GREENFIELD — The Town Council president and vice president have proposed an alternative Fiscal Year 2017 Capital Improvement budget, which would slash the mayor’s proposed $11.8 million budget by 34 percent.
Council President Brickett Allis and Vice President Isaac Mass said the move is unprecedented as, to their knowledge, a councilor has never put together a comprehensive, alternative budget proposal before. However, they said their plan is not meant to be adversarial but rather to encourage a community dialogue about town spending and affordability.
Mayor William Martin could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
“This really has never been done before,” Allis said. “This is really the first time we’re doing a general overview of the entire thing and trying to discuss what we feel, as council leadership, may be a more affordable and leaner plan.”
Allis and Mass said in creating the proposal, they looked at capital budgets over the past five years, figured out where they could potentially reduce the mayor’s proposed numbers, met with him to get his feedback and tweaked the plan further from there.
Ultimately, they came up with a $7.8 million budget, which includes full funding for the new senior center.
“Obviously there’s room to work with this; it’s not set in stone,” Allis said.
The councilors said they were able to cut a combined $440,000 from general fund and sewer fund expenses by not funding new vehicles, including several pickups, a dump truck and a trash truck. They said it’s likely town departments can extend the lives of their vehicles for another year — otherwise, emergency funds can be appropriated for replacements if necessary.
They also elected not to fund a public safety complex design in the alternative budget, citing a lack of potential funding and no comprehensive plan.
“The mayor disagrees vehemently with us on this,” Mass said.
Allis added the town trying to take on all the projects it has in the works at once — such as the new high school, senior center, library, parking garage and public safety complex — would cause planning problems.
Mass agreed, saying, “We recognize the need to invest in infrastructure, our concern is that we can’t do it at the same time. There are tax implications and affordability implications, but there are also planning implications — if we build everything at the same time, 50 years from now it all fails at the same time and our kids end up in the same situation with a crumbling infrastructure.”
Some line items, like potentially live-saving firefighting equipment and school improvements, including replacing outdated servers and installing new exterior doors and bathrooms upgrades, were included in full in the alternative budget.
“The bathrooms are rusted, there’s holes in them, so there are privacy and safety concerns,” Mass said. “It was unhygienic and frankly those need to be replaced.”
The $1 million project to repair the Rocky Mountain water tank was also included in full in the alternative budget.
“If it did fail, it would be a catastrophic failure,” Mass said.
The councilors said keeping rivers and waterways clean is a priority, and therefore decided to keep the mayor’s proposed $200,000 for sewer inflow and infiltration improvements in their plan.
A handful of line items were also reduced in the alternative plan.
The mayor’s proposed $2 million for repairs to the Maple Brook Culvert was reduced to $600,000, which Allis and Mass said would allow the town to resolve major drainage problems in the area of the new senior center and delay the other parts of the project to a later date.
The councilors also hope the town can save $1 million in FY17 by replacing one pump station over the next three years instead of all three at once, and also reduced figures for the cost of replacing guardrails and sidewalk improvements.
Mass said looking at town data over the past five years was an important part of creating the alternative budget. He said there was a nearly $6 million increase from FY15 to FY16 and last year’s budget was $350,000 more than the three previous years combined.
“I hear an overwhelming outcry from residents that it’s too expensive. For me, that’s the bottom line,” Allis said.
Capital budget spending for the four years prior to last year average out to about $2.4 million, Mass added, which he said compares favorably to what other communities spend.
A public hearing on the mayor’s proposed budget will be held during the Town Council meeting March 16, and the Council will discuss and vote on it that night. Allis said the mayor will be there to make his case for the budget.
Both councilors also urged residents to contact them with feedback about their proposal — good or bad.
“I hope that people who see this plan understand that this is for them,” Allis said. “If this overall idea and thought process of reducing is something people like, they need to reach out.”
You can reach Aviva Luttrell at:
aluttrell@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 268
On Twitter follow: @AvivaLuttrell