MONROE, CT — Lower than expected health insurance rates, salary savings from open positions and retirements, a winter with little snow and an increase in interest income due to higher interest rates all factored into the town budget for fiscal year 2023-24 ending with a $4.7 million surplus. On Thursday night, the Board of Finance approved a total of $1.5 million worth of budget transfers, leaving a $3.2 million surplus.
“It just shows we’re on a fiscally strong path,” First Selectman Terry Rooney said.
The surplus is comprised of $3.1 million from less than anticipated expenditures, which includes $1.1 million in the education surplus, and municipal revenues ending $1.6 million higher than projected.
For instance, Bunovsky said health insurance was $500,000 less on the town side, $240,000 did not need to be spent for snow removal, and $2.6 million from the fund balance did not need to be used.
Among the transfers made Thursday was $300,000 for the Board of Education to comply with an unfunded state mandate for the piloting of two reading programs, Wit & Wisdom and Bookworms for grades K-5.
Superintendent Joseph Kobza said the mandate comes from Right to Read legislation and school districts must adopt the programs by July 1 of the 2025-26 school year. He said some districts tried to opt out without success.
“This is a pretty significant expense and will be used for quite a while,” Kobza said.
“This is another unfunded mandate. Thank you Hartford,” Board of Education Chairman David Ferris said.
Rooney asked the superintendent if he believes the program will be beneficial to the schools.
Over a year ago, Kobza said he would say no, but now he said there is value in it.
Michael Crowley, the district’s director of instruction, said the state “bent a little bit to make it work for us.”
Before the changes, when the reading initiative first came out, Kobza said it was a “big box program” that would have undone the work Monroe Public Schools accomplished for reading.
Ferris said the program would have initially cost the district $500,000. “We have Blue Ribbon Schools,” he said. “There’s no need for this. We have phenomenal schools. I’d rather use the $300,000 for a class action lawsuit against the state for imposing unfunded mandates.”
Roller and a paver
Another significant budget transfer is $355,000 for the purchase of a roller and a paver. Public Works Director Chris Nowacki said the equipment will allow the DPW to start on smaller road projects before contractors do bigger ones.
The town had rented a small roller and paver and this new equipment will be larger, allowing crews to do more than patch jobs.
Deputy Public Works Director Bill Phillips said town road crews got to use the equipment, while repairing roads damaged by flooding on Aug. 18.
“We rented a larger one and saw what our guys could do with it,” he said. “After the storm we made very good progress. We want to have one in our arsenal if we can.”
Phillips said he is proud of his guys in the highway department and Board of Finance Vice Chair Katherine Stauffer agreed they did a great job after the storm.
Rooney said the new roller and paver will allow the town to get an early start in the paving season and to do some jobs near the end of the season.
“I think it’s an absolutely great move, because we could pave both sides of the road with a better finish,” he said, and get the asphalt directly without a mark up from the contractor.”
The first selectman said Monroe repaired its roads within eight days, while the state continues to work on some sections of Route 34 in Newtown.
Next year, Rooney said he will ask for a Butler building, a pre-engineered metal building, to store the DPW’s equipment so it will last longer.
Steve Kirsch, a finance board member, asked how much the building would cost and Phillips said $950,000. Kirsch said the board should consider doing it now.
“This, to me, is something that should have been done long ago,” Rooney said.
Tax collection …
Tax Collector Deborah Heim said collections for the current budget stands at 52.2 percent, compared to 52.8 percent at this time last year, and people are paying their back taxes.
“Anything over 50 percent right now is great,” Rooney said.
Treasurer Frank Dutches said the town’s investments are on track.
Budgets on the education and town side are both trending well, according to reports given Thursday night.
“We’re two months into the fiscal year,” Bunovsky said. “The blip was the storm in August. We tapped the disaster relief fund. It’s too early to tell what FEMA reimbursement we may get. It’s still a moving target.”
In other news, Rooney said the town received a $25,000 rebate check from CIRMA, its insurer.
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This surplus is in addition to the 23 million “rainy day fund” and the real estate taxes are still increasing yearly. Time to freeze the taxes and give homeowners “relief”.