Springfield voters take on $9.4M budget

Town Meeting voters will decide a $9.4 million town budget and a modest pay raise for the Board of Selectmen.

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Springfield voters take on $9.4M budget
By Susan Smallheer Herald Staff - Published: February 28, 2008

SPRINGFIELD — Town Meeting voters will decide a $9.4 million town budget and a modest pay raise for the Board of Selectmen.

"We're always trying to keep the quality of service as high as possible for the smallest amount of money," said longtime Select Board member and Chairwoman Mary Helen Hawthorne.

The $9,421,000 proposed town budget is up 3.5 percent, or $327,000, over last year's budget of $9,094,000. But because of a decline in revenue, the town tax rate is expected to go up 6.5 percent.

Hawthorne said if two construction projects were removed from the budget, the town budget would actually decrease.

But that's a big if.

The biggest project is the reconstruction of Park and Union Streets, which will cost $450,000. Hawthorne said the town decided to do both streets at the same time because both have been dug up in the past two years because of the stormwater separation project. And the two roads are in such bad shape, a simple layer of new pavement just won't do the job.

"There wasn't anybody who was going to choose Park over Union, or Union over Park," Hawthorne said. "It was never a question of whether we should just do one street this year."

The Park and Union street project also includes all new sidewalks, which are a high priority for the neighborhood because of Union Street School, one of the town's elementary schools that is undergoing a big renovation.

She said the town will hire outside contractors to build the Park and Union project, in part to save money and also to save the town's highway crew from burnout, particularly with the hard and long winter.

Hawthorne said many of the town's crew have built up compensatory time because of the long winter.

And Hawthorne said the funding for the reconditioning of the oval at Riverside Middle School wasn't coming from taxes, since it is being funded from the $3 million recreation fund the town received from the state for hosting the Springfield state prison.

Hawthorne said she didn't think the recent controversy involving the police union, which has charged the town's administration with failing to solve problems at the police department, would affect the town's support for the town budget.

"I don't get the impression it will affect the passage of the budget in any way," she said, noting the only comments she had heard were from townspeople who questioned the timing of the union's filing of an unfair labor complaint, a week after they moved into the new $2 million police station.

Hawthorne, who is stepping down from the board in March, will support the pay increase for the Select Board members, from $500 to $1,250. The matter will be voted on by Australian ballot, along with virtually everything on the Springfield town meeting warning.

Members of the Springfield Select Board have been paid $500 since the 1960s, and it's the same amount paid to the School Board. But Hawthorne wasn't predicting voter approval.

"I don't think the voters are going to approve it," she said. "It doesn't have a snowball's chance. But I'll defend it http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008802280351