Representative Town Meeting - Regular Meeting

Item when we open discussion for that item. Comments will be limited to three minutes, and tonight being the budget night, there are a few little special ways that we allow comments, so I'll get to those later. Emails may be sent to r t m dash dlwestportct dot gov. That's dlfordistributionlist.westportdl@rtmdlwestportct.gov. These emails will not be read aloud during the meeting. We all settled settled now? Good? Great? Good? Tonight's invocation will be delivered by Bob Whelan.

Mister Whelan is the head of school at Greens Farms Academy which celebrated its one hundredth anniversary birthday last year and has educated many, many Westport residents over that period. Many of us know mister Whelan among other ways from his creative snow day videos, which have gotten a lot of play on Dan Woug's blog, and we know him inside and outside the GFA family in many other ways. Welcome. I think first time ever someone from Greens Farms has given the invocation. So welcome, Mr. Whelan.

Thank you. Good evening. I'm Bob Whelan, proud Westport resident in my eighth year as head of school at Greens Farms Academy, coeducational pre kindergarten through grade 12 independent school that's been a part of the Westport community for more than a century. As an educator, I spend my days thinking about how we prepare young people to lead lives of purpose in a world that's certainly changing at breathtaking speed. We're living through a true technological inflection point.

Large language models, ChatGPT, Claude, others can now write, reason, analyze, and create in ways that would have seemed unimaginable just a few years ago. Generve AI is powerful. It's arriving quickly and it's raising profound questions in our schools, our workplaces, our public life about what it means to think, to contribute, and to lead. And yet standing in classrooms and in communities like this one, I keep returning to something simple and enduring. The things that tend to matter most cannot be easily generated.

They have to be practiced. The ancient Athenians called it politae, the active life of the citizen. The Romans spoke of res publica, the public thing, the shared enterprise that belongs to all of us. Both understood that democracy is not a product or an output. It's a discipline, one that must be practiced.

It asks us to show up, to deliberate honestly, and to remain open to being changed by a better argument. It's a human endeavor, and it requires human practice. At GFA, help young people develop the skills to think critically, communicate clearly, collaborate with others, and act in the public interest. We certainly didn't invent those skills. Aristotle would have recognized them, so would the founders of New England's town meetings where neighbors gathered, looked one another in the eye, and took responsibility for the life they shared, practicing democracy one meeting at a time.

The representative town meeting refines that tradition. It brings scale and structure while preserving what matters most, which is the legitimacy that comes from participation and the trust that grows from accountability. Westport has long been a faithful practitioner of that tradition. Our public schools are among the finest in the state and in the nation, a testament to this community's commitment to its children and to our shared future. Westport's emergency services teams bring talent, training, and care that are among the finest I have encountered anywhere.

And the budget before you is more than a set of numbers. It's a statement of priorities, a financial expression of values, of who we choose to be together. Those are human judgments. They require human practice, and they belong here in this room shaped by people who know this place and care about its future. So at a time when so much is being automated, optimized, and accelerated, it's a privilege to be with you in person tonight to slow down for a moment and value the irreplaceable work of this gathering.

My teaching colleagues have given me four small pieces of wisdom about practicing civil discourse that may serve you tonight and beyond this room. First, in the parlance of our youngest learners, don't yuck someone's yum. Second, as our elementary students remind me, two things can be

true at

once. Third, approach with curiosity rather than certainty when we're so certain we've closed the door to learning. And fourth, and one of the most useful phrases I've found in civil discourse, I see it differently. That simple phrase respectfully signals that another perspective is coming without diminishing the one just offered. These are dispositions and skills that need to be practiced and they improve with use.

So here's to listening with openness, speaking with clarity and respect, and when we disagree, doing so with generosity. And may we remind ourselves and the young people watching us on channel seventy nine, as I'm sure they are, that the most important work of a democracy is not done by machines, it is done by citizens practicing. Thank you for the stewardship you bring to this work. It means a lot to me, and it's an honor to lead you in the pledge of allegiance tonight. Please stand if you're able.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank Thank you, mister Whalen. I have already offered mister Whalen the opportunity to stay with us tonight but he he has suggested he might have other things to do. Thank you. I told you they laugh every month.

Would the deputy moderator please call the roll.

Miss Kuykendahl. Mister Mandel. Yes. Miss Purcell? Mister Tate? Sure. Mister Keenan? Here. Miss Levy? Here. Mister Mull? Here. Miss Peacock?

Here. On the phone.

Mister Burkhart?

I have not heard from him.

Okay. Mister Drake? Here. Mister Izzo? Here. Miss Kopak? Here. Mister Colabella? Here. Mister Lucas?

Miss Wiley? Here. Mister Gold?

Here.

Miss Kramer? Present. Mister Lowenstein? Here. Miss Shum? Here. Miss Banks?

She's, going to be away.

Mister Braunstein?

Here. I am here. Miss Sorrelli?

Again. Miss Briggs? Here. Mister Carson?

Here.

Miss Lautenberg? Here. Mister Kling? Here. Miss Bateau? Here. Miss Cohn?

Phone, I think. You on the phone, miss Cohn? Maybe later. Here. Oh, there you are. Yep.

Miss Grayson? Here. Mister Newman? Here. Miss Johnson? Here. Miss Kale? Here. Mister Moore?

On the phone? Here. On the phone.

Miss Schneeman?

Maybe Here

on the phone.

On the phone.

Mister Weiser.

Here.

Four absent as of now.

32. Right?

Yep. 32, including the phone.

Is that right? Sorry. Is 29 here and 4 on the phone or 30 here?

I had 32 here. I'm I'm excluding phone 32 here. I mean, including phone.

No. Burkhart.

Burkhart, Lucas, Banks, and Sorelle.

Yep. Okay. Good. There are 32 people here.

Yep.

Good. 32 members present. Congratulations to our May birthdays, mister Gold. Happy birthday. And miss Naaman on the phone, happy birthday.

I'm also pleased to point out that today marks the start of the fifty seventh professional municipal clerk's week, and so it's a good chance for me to thank for myself and on behalf of all of you, the great team we have in the town clerk's office. Jeff Dunkerton and his staff perform many functions in Westport and it comes closest to us as they make sure the RTMs run smoothly at all times. So happy professional municipal clerk's week and a big thank you to mister Dunkerton, Tatiana Placci, Donna Stosser, Lori Grandini, Jennifer Longabardi, and Karen Westergaard. Thank you all and when you watch this tomorrow, we thank you. Are there any RTM announcements?

Mister Gold.

Peter Gold speaking as the director of the transit district. I'm pleased to announce that effective today, we've extended our service hours till 03:00 in the afternoon on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. And effective today, we also stop at the corner of Campo Road and Post Road East on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from nine to three. So now you can go to Trader Joe's, CVS, Gold's Deli, as well as all the other places we used to go to. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Gold. Miss Purcell.

Kristen Mott Pursell, RTM district one. A quick reminder, Mother's Day is Sunday. If you have not loaded up on your gifts, please come to the Westport Garden Club plant sale this Saturday held at 09:30 at Jessup Green at the library. We have herbs. We have gifts for mom. We have fun planters, and more importantly, beautifully curated plants generated by the members of the garden club. So please come join us 09:30 Saturday morning.

Thank you, miss Pursell. Mister Mandel has an announcement.

Matthew Mandel, RTM District one. This Chamber of Commerce biggest event is coming up on May 17. It's the tenth annual dog festival. Hard to believe it's been 10 of them. But before I talk about it, you can't run these events without the help of the town. Almost every department has a piece of this festival, Slice of Saugatuck and all the others, whether it's police, the fire, the the parks and rec, the town attorney's office, the the the clerk's office. The only one that we may not deal with is is health and human services. But then we give donations and they make sure that they get the money and it goes out to the right places. Thank you town town departments for making this work. It takes a team to make it happen.

One person, one organization can't do it without your support, so thank you. Dog Festival. As you as you know what's out there. 3,000 people come, almost a thousand dogs come, obstacle courses, goofy competitions, 60 different vendors and the police canines are out there again. And this year, we're also gonna have party pigs. Dogs and pigs, why not? It's gonna be fun. But, I have a surprise coming for you. I've been tinkering with AI and in the next couple days we're gonna be launching a little bit of advertising through AI and as the the gentleman from Greens Farms Academy said, the AI is becoming part of our everyday life. So, we've got a surprise with AI coming.

So, that's it. On the seventeenth, by the way, just to let you know, it will be cashless entry. The only way to come in is with a credit card or with Apple Pay. Makes it easier for us and we can track everything. So, just makes it easier. Less people that have to work like Karen Kramer who's always volunteered to come. Now, you just have to swipe. You don't have to count. So, May 17 dog festival.

Thank you, mister Mandela. Any other RTM announcements? Any other RTM announcements? Seeing none, our next regularly scheduled RTM meeting will be tomorrow night when we will discuss and improve the board of education budget. Our next regularly scheduled monthly meeting will be Tuesday, June 7.

However, there was a recently signed police contract just a few days ago which requires us to confirm it within thirty days. So, we might be having a Zoom RTM meeting two weeks from tonight, and hopefully a committee meeting can get organized. Everybody's working hard to make that happen. As usual, we are quick on our feet so we can make it happen, I think, Keep your calendars open for seven thirty two weeks from tonight for what I think will be a short meeting, but that might happen and we'll be hearing more about that as we go. Getting on with the business of the agenda, I will emphasize this a few times tonight, as but it may seem tonight like we are progressing quickly through a very large budget, I'd like to make sure that all those listening know that the RTM Education and Finance Committees as well as other individual committees and RTM members have been meeting about this budget and discussing it with various department heads and the board of ed since January.

And so tonight's meeting is a culmination of all that hard work. I'd like to thank the school administration, the board of education, the board of finance, and all RTM committees for all their diligence in connection with this budget. Tonight, we'll be addressing the town budget presented by the board of finance, and tomorrow we'll address the board of ed budget, and tomorrow night we'll approve the total consolidated budget. Just a reminder that in accordance with RTM rules, no new agenda item can be addressed after 11:30 p. M.

Unless a two thirty majority, two thirds majority of the RTM members agree to continue past that time, and I'm pretty certain we won't be here at 11:30 tonight. So a brief explanation of the agenda and procedure for tonight's meeting. We will begin with presentation of the town side of the budget by the Board of Finance Chair, Danielle Dobin, and Jeff Hammer. Many committees have met to review those corresponding departments, but as practice dictates, we'll hear only from the finance committee tonight. Tomorrow night, we'll hear from the finance and education committees.

If other committees wish to report verbally, they may do so when we turn to that section in the budget. In any case, I expect that RTM members have reviewed the specific committee reports which are also available to the public on the town website. At the conclusion of the finance committee report, we'll then turn to the committee report and then to the public for comment, and then to the RTM for debate and voting. We'll vote in two parts on the town budget. First, we will discuss the operating departments of the town, and after voting on that portion of the general town budget, we will turn to the four agencies of the town which include the health district, the library, birthplace, and Westport Transit District.

If your comments from the public or the RTM relate to these agencies, please hold them until we get to that section of the proceedings. And when we turn to the public tonight after we hear from the finance committee, members of the Westport electorate may address any individual area of the town budget or the budget as a whole. But if you have a comment on the health district, library, earth place, or Westport Transit District, please hold those those thoughts. We'll maintain a three minute limit on the comments, so please plan your comments to fit into that time frame. When the RTM begins to review the budget, if there's a motion with respect to any item in the budget, I will open the floor back up to the public to comment on that specific item, again within the three minute limit.

Unless there's a motion on any item, I will be calling out each general budget item in turn. And then if an RTM member wishes to make a motion or discuss a particular area or any line item as it relates to the budget in that area. Comments will be limited to ten minutes. If a committee wishes to report verbally, please raise your hand when we come to the area of the budget. If no one wishes to discuss that area, I will consider all the line items in that area approved and move on to the next department.

There are no budget cuts to restore to the budget this year, but if a motion to reduce any part of the budget is made and seconded, we'll hear the committee report if the report addresses it, then hear comments from the public, and then turn to the RTM. A word about voting. The RTM may approve or decrease a budget line item by a simple majority vote. The RTM may restore any amount requested by 70%, but we don't have any amounts to restore tonight. The RTM may not increase any budget item beyond the request to the Board of Finance, And and then regarding conflicts of interest, as I have every year, I'd like to remind everyone of the town charter provision on conflicts of interest.

Charter section c 38 dash two states that, quote, no town employee or any member, whether elected or appointed, of any board, commission, agency, committee, department, or of the representative town meeting of the town shall participate in any official capacity in the hearing or decision upon any matter in which such person has directly or indirectly a personal or financial interest. In the event of such disqualification, such fact shall be entered on the records of the commission or board. Article six of our own RTM rules of procedure adds the provision that all members should be most sensitive to permitting an actual conflict of interest the appearance of a conflict of interest to exist even though the complete disclosure of all circumstances would show that an actual conflict did not exist in a particular case. I believe Are you recusing yourself from Earthplace, mister Mandel? No, sir.

And mister Gold recusing himself from transit? Yes. Any other members like planning to recuse themselves from any particular part of the budget? I think not, and I didn't think so. So, again, I wanna thank everybody. I wanna remind everybody that we're blasting through a lot of this, but we've been working on it for a long time. So and then as we go, ask finance director Gary Conrad to please keep a running total of the amounts that we are approving so that we know where we are when we get to the end. And with that preamble, would the deputy moderator read item one of the call?

To take such actions, the meeting may determine, upon the estimate and recommendation of the board of finance, to adopt a budget for the town of Westport for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 and to make such specific appropriations as appear advisable.

Thank you, miss Garf. Presenting for the board of finance and the administration will be Danielle Delvin and Jeff Hammer. Come on down and we'll get out of your way.

Alright. Here we go. Okay. They'll have the full picture. You'll get this view. Just advance with the arrow there. Perfect. All set.

Thank you so much, Gary. Hopefully that won't turn anything off. Greetings to the RTM and good evening. For those who don't know me, I'm Danielle Dobin, chair of the board of finance. Joining me tonight to present the board of finance's recommended 2027 budget is Jeff Hammer. Also in the audience is Liz Hyer, our vice chair. Thank you, Liz. And the other members are watching from home and sending their support. Before we start, I wanted to thank our first selectman, Kevin Christie. He truly set the tone for what the moderator has already referred to as a very long process.

He took a truly collaborative approach. He's been accessible and responsive. As you'll hear throughout our presentation, we made multiple proposals as a board to improve this process and our first selectman has truly partnered with us to make the process better entirely. I also see a number of our department heads in the audience. As all of you know, they contribute every day to the excellence of our town.

They were very patient with our questions. They provided us with additional information throughout our very long budget workshops, And we're very grateful for their support and that of all the town sport all the town staff and all of the different volunteer boards, many of whom I see members of here tonight to once again talk to us about their budgets. Thank you so much everybody. A quick overview of our process tonight. We're going to start with an overview of how the board of finance approached reviewing specific budget.

Obviously, the budget itself. We intend to explore this in granular detail. I'm just kidding. That's a joke. But we're certainly open to very specific questions afterwards. We're gonna share our conclusions following our review, our next steps looking ahead. And we were hoping for q and a directly afterwards, but I'm gonna check with the moderator and deputy moderator if that's appropriate. They are shaking their heads. So please ignore the q and a. We're not gonna answer any of your questions at this time. I wish I could take this approach in more venues of my life. No questions now, just later. So we're gonna start off by having Jeff talk a little bit about how the board of finance approached the budget.

Thank you. I also wanna thank, like Danielle did, the RTM for having us here tonight to give you presentation. You might find it a little surprising because there might actually be more words than numbers. So, that will challenge you to watch it, but we'll go through it very quickly. So, the framework, it comes down to something like this. If there were to be a mission statement for the Board of Finance, it would come out to this. Now we have this entitled as lens. When we look at it, we are finance people, and we are trying to determine is the highest and best use of the next marginal dollar to support Westport's property value over the long term? Is this next marginal dollar going to be the highest and best use to support that value? So that in a way is a mission statement.

We'll then ask some key questions. What is the town trying to maximize? Are we trying to maximize property values, the utility of its residents, the fiscal stability of the town, or are we trying to achieve some sort of intergenerational equity for investing for people in the future and us paying in today? These are all questions that we need to think about. If the town were incorporated today, what would we fund and at what levels? Are we measuring the right outputs? Do we have the right tools to do so? Are we an outlier from comparable towns? Is this a good thing? Is it a bad thing?

If so, is the level of spending to get that justified by better outcomes? What risk are specific capital projects seeking to mitigate? What are their full cycle costs? Do they enhance property values? Do they reduce future operating expenditures? In the aggregate, we're trying to ask does this budget improve or degrade the long term attractiveness of living in Westport? So when we say to ourselves as we're trying to anchor ourselves on our budgeting principles, we come to what we will call first principles. The first one being intentionality. Does our proposed spending reflect our community's values? That's one important question that we will always ask.

Are we being realistic? So, realism is a second principle. Are we anchored to really conservative revenue assumptions? People have heard me talk about being in a defensive crouch so that we can anticipate whatever might come our way. Are we being sophisticated enough in our finances? Do we distinguish between fixed and operating and variable costs? Maintenance and growth expenditures. That's been reflected obviously in the experience we've had with schools over time. Do we recognize some costs? All the studies that we've done over time. Do they sit there? Do they provide any value for us? Or if we do need to have an additional study, do we labor to achieve that because we've done prior studies? So, sunk costs are a big issue that we have to address. Transparency.

Does our budgeting process promote accountability from all perspectives? And finally, what at the very bottom, you might not see it all, is antifragility, and this is borrowed from Nassim Taleb in the book he wrote, Antifragile. Can we survive a black swan event? Such as things like rapid wage and cost inflation, spiking healthcare claims or healthcare costs, loss of state grants and subsidies, forced absorption of unfunded pension liabilities, and the last one, what we're seeing now is the conversion of office and other buildings to multi family dwellings which will put a strain potentially on our resources. So, that's the framing we look at when we look at this budget.

Hopefully this is meant to be thought provoking as you look at the numbers which will follow now. So, objectives, we achieve to balance effectively between the town services and our tax burden. That is the fundamental choice we have to make at in every dollar we look at. Obviously, we wanna protect our core assets, the schools, the safety services, the recreational facilities. We're going to do the best we can in making sure we can be funded to maintain roads, bridges, the waterfront amenities, our parks.

We wanna make sure we're doing this fairly. Are all groups in Westport getting their due? Seniors, will they be able to live in place? Will young families be able to move into Westport and to get the services that they require? Achieving that Goldilocks zone is something we think very deeply about. Finally, or I should say, finally as a group, we need to be a resilient community in the face of climate change and continued development. We need to maintain our sustainability goals. That's an important part of our values. Are we doing that? Danielle?

Thanks Jeff.

As I alluded to before as did the moderator, this has been a very long process. But for those watching from home or joining us in the audience, we wanted to talk a little bit about how we got to where we are now. To begin with, the board of finance engaged in a rigorous process, a line by line department review. This often took place at our budget workshops. I know many of you had the opportunity to watch us because for the first time, thanks to the cooperation of our first selectmen, these were streamed and recorded.

So you can actually go back after the meeting and watch them now. And I wanna call out Nancy Cale who came to all of them. Thank you so much Nancy for joining us. The the board of finance engages in regular audits and we've really tried to rev leverage our internal audit subcommittee this year and I would say the past two years in order to take a deeper dive into overtime spending and also to review our parks and recreation revenue coming in. We really consider as a board a multi year planning horizon when we look at every single operating budget and we take very seriously responsible and responsive pension investment management.

With regard to the budget, I just wanted to call out the increase in revenue from the parks and recreation. This is due to two specific factors. First, after a very long time I think we appropriately increased the amount of funding, the amount of fees we were charging for all of our various camps. At the same time, instead of creating wait lists, the leadership at Parks and Rec created more opportunities for more children to be served. And I am really glad that for the first time Camp Campo is going to provide camp even when the weather doesn't cooperate.

So there'll be opportunities for people to participate and still send their kids even if it's raining outside. We can take a look at the expenses. I wanna call out the debt service but we'll talk about that a little bit more later on. With regard to the town budget recommendations, overall, we're looking at a little under a 2% increase. If we look at the numbers starting with public safety up above, a lot of the allocation with regard to the police department that's increased is going to fall into three specific buckets that I wanted to talk about.

One is increase in pay through collective bargaining agreements, obviously something fixed that's out of our control. The second is increasing our cybersecurity. Obviously, it's never been more important for our police department to be invested in hardening our systems. And the last item is one that I think is really special with regard to Westport. We talk a lot and the moderator made reference to this as well as as to how the way we spend money reflects our values.

We are spending more money now in order to protect free expression in Westport. As many of you know, Westport has become a focal point for a lot of different political protests. And whether we agree and especially when we disagree with what people have to say, I think we can all feel especially proud that our police department is ensuring that everybody is safe who is participating all the time. That comes as at a cost, and we are, as a town, ensuring that everybody who comes to this town has the opportunity to freely participate and express their political opinions. Next, parks and recreation.

The parks and recreation expenses that have increased are truly investments in our amenities. First, we've added a staff member with regard to town maintenance. Secondly, we've invested in new equipment to allow our parks maintenance staff to do more themselves instead of working with third parties. With regard to third parties sorry. I don't know what that thing is. Closer? No. Further. Sorry. You know, you guys could have told me earlier.

I thought it was like a wrap. Alright. With regard to our third parties, we renegotiated our contract for care for our golf course. That was initially negotiated before COVID and as a consequence of how pricing has gone up, that's more expensive. We are also choosing to care for Longshore Park outside of the golf course ourselves.

And we have the added cost of the new golf carts as well. Just wanna make sure I'm not oh, of course, additional hours in terms of security. As part of our audit, one of the things that we noticed on the audit subcommittee is that the money was being transported, a lot of it cash from the beach to the parks and recreation office by a teenager late at night by themselves. And we decided we didn't need a Brink's truck, but we needed to address that issue. And, fortunately, the police department is able to help us with that.

Moving on to general government. With regard to general government, we were really delighted to see that the first selectman proposed new spending for cybersecurity. Again, in this day and age, we really can't invest enough in ensuring that all of our information and the information of our residents is safe. We're also, as a town, making new investments to ensure better access through hybrid meetings. I'm not sure when the last time anyone in this body tried to join a meeting via Zoom, that's a hybrid meeting, but they probably weren't particularly successful.

And we're really excited to see the changes that are coming this year. We think it will benefit our elected officials, and it will tremendously benefit members of the public who can't come in person but still want to be able to fully participate in our political process. Outstanding issues that arose during our review. The first I wanna talk about relates to the Aspituq Health District. We noticed issues with regard to structure, governance, and accountability.

At our board of finance meeting, we heard from one of the board members of the Aspatic Health District who shared that in his view, the town was, restricted in how we could actually impact the budget. However, the town attorney has since provided an opinion that the town has full authority in our view it to reduce the budget should we want to in the future. So the board of finance did not propose any cuts at this time, but I did wanna correct the record with regard to the town's ability to impact that budget in the future. Secondly, the town funding of nonprofits. This has come up several times and what we've really noticed is that we want to create a linkage to criteria for future funding for nonprofits where benefits for the town should be established in each individual case.

As you know, there was some discussion of Earthplace in the last budget season. There was not at this time, but we are committed to finding a way forward to ensure that there's equitable treatment of all the nonprofits that work with the town or wanna work with the town. Westport Transit. Well, I'm delighted to share and I'm sure Peter will applaud the fact that the board of finance unanimously approved the entire Westport transit budget this year. And it's a great testament to him and Corinna's involvement.

While we do think that both structural and cost effective questions remain, the service delivery has improved exponentially and we were really pre pleased to see the progress and the change. More than anything, something that was called out by almost every member of our board was a concern about budget creep. Obviously, increases are multifactorial, but they are unsustainable and we need to take a different view. While specific principles of zero based budgeting may not be effective in every case, we do think that they need to be considered. Instead of being away from the microphone.

And we did really broadcast this quite clearly both to the first electman and to the school superintendent. And so we're hopeful that as we start working on next year's budgets very soon with both of those groups that will really take an eye to how we can ensure that we are not constantly baking in these two to 5% increases every year. I'm gonna have Jeff share some of our conclusions.

So we're more than halfway home. Thank you for bearing with us. We have two sections to go but they're gonna be really quick. This one in particular. Thank you, Jimmy.

So first is a round of applause for everybody here that in a time of significant cost pressure compared to some of our other sister communities, we are up around 2%. But as I will call this out for people who can't quite see it, New Canaan up 2.3%, Wilton 3.6, Greenwich 4.3%, Fairfield 5%, and Darien 5.5%. We should all realize that we have done extraordinarily well in a tough environment. And for one, I don't think we've compromised our values or our programs. This has been a collaborative effort from the first selectman's office, the various town department heads who have really moderated their increase.

However, there are challenges ahead, and we call out a few of them on this slide. As we look forward, we may end up investing in Coley Elementary School, and the fire stations clearly need investment. Those will drive our outstanding debt if they take place, and the debt service numbers will rise. Healthcare has continued to be an issue for everyone, and we notice it as well, both for the school as well as for our employees. Just the costs of healthcare keep going, and our claims experience has been outside of the mean.

The other wild card, another wild card, is unfunded state mandates. You know, with the pressure coming from the federal government through the state government, you know, our services are increasing faster than the revenues that we are receiving from the state. Other issues that could show up are housing conversion, as we mentioned earlier, could create additional cost services that the town would require to provide, especially as offices are converted into residential dwellings. And finally, eight thirty gs projects or any larger projects that will put a burden on our safety services and other services we have to provide. These are all pressures that could both impact capital and operating expenses as we go forward.

Which leads us to this slide. As you've seen, this is the amount of outstanding debt we've had broken out. In the green is the sewer debt, the orange is the school debt, and then we have general debt. For a fairly long period of time, which goes even further beyond that, we have had approximately $100,000,000 outstanding. In 2026, this will bump to 175,000,000. And with the additional capital projects that may come before us, that number will climb further. So, this should be a reminder. It's a bit of a sobering picture of what's in front of us given that we all want to continue to invest in our town. Now Danielle will take us into next steps.

How do we go to next steps?

Okay. I'll do that.

But, I mean, I can. You were oh, you didn't

Yeah. Yeah. You talked. So, I'll talk The next step, of course, is setting the tax rate or the mill rate. And this is really a primer since I think it was asked as to how the mill rate is developed as we, the Board of Finance, move to strike that mill rate.

And it's really pretty simple math in that we and you have approved or will approve the various budgets and the debt service involved. The revenues that you saw in the very first slide will be subtracted from that which will result in the amount that we must raise through property taxes. That's how we do it every year. It's really the property taxes are a plug. And then the calculation, is below the screen there, is that the mill rate in the end equals the tax levy divided by the grand list times 1,000.

So, at the end of the day, the mill rate is a function of the grand list and the amount of income that we need to generate to pay for our services. So, to reemphasize that we determine the level of services we want first. We subtract the revenue, and then we end up with the amount we have to raise. And those are the taxes that we as residents and the commercial establishments end up paying.

To wrap up, I wanted to talk a little bit about the processes that we've developed to try and improve our processes going forward. So first, with the cooperation and enthusiastic support of the First Selectmen, we're working together to adopt a new budgeting software. We're really hopeful that this will improve transparency, increase accountability, enable granular reporting of spending data, and empower BOF members as well as members of the RTM to review the budget data directly. We really wanna get into the numbers more than we can right now. Secondly, the first electman has been immensely supportive of BOF proposals to improve our capital review process.

We've requested more comprehensive presentations in advance of hearings versus hearing the story told verbally at a hearing. We'd like the opportunity to review more information and data in advance. We wanna improve our diligence of our vendors and partners. We wanna tighten and standardize lease terms for all of our town assets. We wanna learn from our past errors and do better on behalf of taxpayers in the future.

We wanna increase public access to the approvals process. It's really important to us as well to streamline the BOF decision making process as we engaged in a conversation with the first selectman and he brought in department heads to discuss with us our process, what we heard from them is that meeting once a month was creating immense pressure on those departments. Why? Because as you know more than anybody, until the board of finance approves an appropriation, the RTM can't take it up. So we would host one meeting.

We provide a lot of feedback. We wouldn't hear back from them for an entire month. And it was only then that this could move on to the to the RTM for your review. So instead, we've added to no one's excitement on the board of finance, a second meeting. When I shared the news with Lee Kaney, he rolled his eyes.

I could hear it over the phone. This second virtual meeting really necessitated the cooperation and support of the first electman and his team because there was no room at town hall, etcetera. But it's so it's a second virtual meeting every month and it's already proven to be extremely useful in terms of moving our process forward and more effectively and creating a lot more public access to information. The board will hear a proposal, then within two weeks, we'll have more information. The public will have that information.

They're not waiting an entire month and then a subsequent month for it to come in front of the RTM. If it doesn't work, everybody on the board of finance agrees we can remove and eliminate the second meeting. But, unfortunately, I think it's gonna be proven very effective. We are also maintaining public office hours. We already held these twice twice a month twice a month at the library.

I'm not sure if we're gonna continue with that schedule, but we found a number of members of the public attended and had a lot of questions. And we've also taken made a lot of efforts to share our agenda publicly with various local news sources so that members of the public are aware of what is coming before the board of finance, especially in budget season, before the board meets instead of after we've made a decision. So we feel as if as though this cumulative process is constantly improving. We're very open to hearing from members of the RTM with regard to how we can do better. We're very proud of the budget that we're presenting to you today.

We do believe it truly reflects our values and our priorities, ensuring excellence in our schools, and ensuring a real balance between spending and ensuring that our tax rate remains competitive and comfortable for our residents. So when the time is right, we're happy to hear all of your questions. Thank you so much for your time tonight.

Just take it away. No.

That's that's fine.

Where's Jeff?

Oh, he left.

Do you

want me to wait?

Freezing the screen.

Will now Pretty much.

Our stage manager is back. Hi, everyone. I'm Nancy Kale, RTM District nine, and a member of the finance committee. Thank you very much. That was wonderful, very comprehensive. You're gonna see lots of alignment. And please tell me if I'm producing that banging. I

will tell

you, Nancy. Okay. No. Thank you. If you can hear it, tell me. Alright. I think it's mostly p's. I'll try not to pronounce them. Okay. So this is the finance committee report on the town operating budget.

This report covers agenda items one through four tonight. So it's the f y twenty seven town operating budget and the related funds, which we're voting on separately but I'm gonna go through the entire part the entire one through four agenda items together in one report the town operating budget is $89,500,000 this is an increase of 1.96%. It's part of the total general fund which is 266,100,000 up 5.2% and that includes education budget. So the RTM is discussing the education budget tomorrow night. The town operating budget reflects maintaining services, target investments, and inflation pressures, and is partially offset by strong pension and OPEB funding.

The budget process. This bears repeating, so sorry about that. As everybody said tonight, this was a multistep process. It starts with the first electman and his staff. The budget spilt it goes to the board of finance and then it goes to the rtm the rtm finance committee held meetings on April with other relevant rtm committees and town leaders and staff These were either via Zoom or in person, and everything was recorded.

Practically every RTM member in this room has attended parts or all of those meetings. So as our moderator said, we've all gone over this budget and most parts of it very, very meticulously. What' the rtm s role? We review, we approve, we reduce, or we restore, but we cannot increase. In recent years, as Jeff said, the RTM has restored items that the BOF has removed.

This year, the RTM did not restore anything because nothing was removed. It was pretty much smooth sailing. This year also, as has been discussed, showed improved transparency. And here I wanna say that not only the the town and the board of finance, but the RTM have worked together with two and members of the public, frankly, to make improvements, not just in this budget season, but as you've also heard, there's a commitment to make ongoing improvements in the future, and we're all doing this together. So some of the ways that there were improvements this year was improved transparency and information and earlier engagement and additional ways to learn about and contribute to the budget conversation.

As Danielle said, that included streamed board of finance workshops. That was just golden. Thank you very, very much. And I'm sure it did increase participation in those crucial beginning parts of evaluating the budget. Summarized budget information and Board of Finance office hours, I actually went to some of those too.

The key budget drivers that the committee focused on and were revealed during our review include external factors such as inflation, rising health care costs, market and interest rate uncertainty. Internally, personnel and contracts, technology and cybersecurity, infrastructure and capital maintenance, and then strong pension and OPEB positions helped offset budget pressures. We went through a detailed review process just like the Board of Finance did where all the department heads and numerous staff came and presented each of their individual department budgets to the rtm so the same analysis that danielle outlined we also conducted it's part of our jobs on the rtm and we were doing that in joint committees so for public safety it was the public safety committee of the rtm and the finance committee and then other rtm members were always present and members of the public of course and we analyzed each of the budgets so we went through what the budgets were what their percent increases were the reasons behind the variances year to year and the different budget drivers and just what those departments were delivering in terms of services and improvements. So sounds pretty similar. I'm not gonna do that tonight.

I'm not gonna rehash all of that, but just be assured that it's in the report department by department. And the major reviews were as follows, public safety, public works, parks and rec, information technology, which is a part of the general government budget, human serve in human services. So we voted on each department actually separately, both the finance committee did and the respective departments did. As Jeff said, it's unlikely that you'll hear from any of the other RTM committees but they most all of them I think at this point have submitted reports. So the finance committee votes were unanimous in each one of those department areas and then the other committee votes were are also reflected in our review.

Then we looked to other organizations so we reviewed town support for these separate organizations that provide public services the library, the health district, earth place, and the transit district. So town support for those organizations totals 7,700,000 and this is down slightly year over year for these organizations. Couple things to note. The transit budget decreased year over year while ridership increased, and we agreed that there were several department improvements in the way that transit district is is operating. Library sourced funding for its budget increased 10.9% this year.

That's the largest of our supported town budgets. The town Earthplace contribution of a $105,000 has remained the same for several years, and Earthplace welcomed a new director this year as did the health district. There I think that I've seen that director the new director in in the audience somewhere. So across all organizations, as the board of finance just commented, there was continued focus on accountability, funding structure, town partnerships, and all finance committee votes were unanimous in support of these organizations respective budgets. Just to remind you, and as was stated earlier, in previous years there have been RTM actions to restore parts of these budgets when they were reduced by the Board of Finance.

But, as we said, smooth sailing this year. We we didn't restore anything. There was nothing to restore. Then we looked at user funded funds. So these are going to be the other agenda items that we're voting on tonight, items two, three, and four.

Railroad parking, sewer, and Wakeman Town Farm. So these are all user funded and do not directly impact the the mill rate. And, although there was some discussion of railroad parking rates, it was tabled because we really tried to stick to what was affecting this year's budget. Danielle threw up a slide that talked about other outstanding items. We have plenty of those too, but that wasn't our job during these budget conversations.

It was to stick to the budget. So sometimes, you know, we're sitting on our hands when we're going through the budget because these items that are long standing and what we want to address are important to us. It just wasn't part of this budget conversation. So, we reviewed all of these other funds and they were all unanimously approved during our meetings. Pensions, insurance, and debt.

That category or the with those categories combined, total approximately $20,600,000. It's down slightly year over year. This is a big chunk of our total operating budget. And there'92s kind of they'92re central, they'92re not kind of, they are central to our long term financial stability. Pensions.

Our town pension plans remain well funded reflecting consistent contributions and strong investment performance. This strong position helps reduce annual budget pressure and financial risk. OPEB, again, was no contribution this year to OPEB Benefits were funded through a combination of the overfunded OPEB trust and pay as you go support from the general fund. This approach, again, helps manage rising retiree healthcare costs while preserving flexibility. Insurance.

Budgeted at 10,000,000, it was down modestly. This reflects favorable claims experienced this year and active cost management while continuing to provide necessary coverage. The winds were with us this year in terms of health care, so we got lucky. Debt. Debt service continues to decline in the near term due to ongoing pay downs.

However, future borrowing is expected as the town addresses ongoing capital and infrastructure needs such as education and other areas. Here goes another primer on tax impact and our revaluation. It's important too, it's why we're here and it's you know all sites now on when the board of finance sets the mill rate. The final tax impact will be determined when the board of finance sets the mill rate in May. The proposed general fund budget of 266,100,000 will be offset by the 27,300,000 in nontax revenues.

We're in sync so far about what we said. And the balance will be funded through property taxes. And potentially, here's what wasn't mentioned, but this could happen. It's happened in the past. A contribution from the general fund balance is determined by the board of finance.

The reval and resulting ground list are significant elements in this year's budget cycle. The grand list increased significantly in 2025 by over 50%, and and that's that's gonna be a key factor in how the tax burden is distributed. The reval does not increase the total amount of taxes collected by the town. It redistributes the tax burden based on updated property values. So as a result, individual tax tax bills will vary depending on how a property's value change relative to the overall ground list. Really important to understand that. Historically,

you

should know that the town has followed a strategy of consistent, modest mill rate increases to maintain services and make prudent investments, and Westport continues to have one of the lowest mill rates in our area, in the state, actually. So, in short, the budget determines how much is raised and the revaluation determines who pays what. Improvements, I really want to repeat this because it'92s exciting to me that we'92re doing this so here we go again. The finance committee also focused on ways to strengthen the budget process going forward. Key themes included earlier engagement in the budget cycle to allow more time for review and analysis continued improvements in transparency and accessibility of budget information, exploration of better tools and systems to support budget analysis and reporting, and development of clear guidelines and expectations for outside organizations receiving town funding.

So, these efforts, again, are intended to support a more informed, collaborative, and effective budget process in future years. To conclude, it's almost over. The budget reflects a disciplined and balanced approach. It maintains services while addressing cost pressures and making targeted investments. The town remains financially strong.

I wanna thank my fellow finance committee members, Seth Braunstein, our chair, Jill Carson, Jill Grayson, Pam Kopak, and Charles Lucas for their time and work throughout this process. We would also like to thank our RTM colleagues, town department heads, the first electmen, and all the staff that participated in this, the finance director, the board of finance, and members of the public for their time, input, and collaboration. We extend our sincere appreciation to Department of Public Works director Pete Rakovich and assistant town attorney Eileen Levine for their many years of dedicated service to the town, and we wish them all the best in their retirements. As for our final recommendation, the finance committee recommends approval of agenda items one through four which are the town operating budget for fiscal year twenty seven and related fund budgets.

Thank you miss Gail.

Thank you.

Excellent report. We now turn to the Westport electorate. And so as we go to be clear, the numbers that you've seen from the board of finance and from the committee report, those are numbers that we will be presenting for approval tonight. And unless an RTM member recommends reducing one of those numbers, we will pass those numbers. But if someone does recommend reducing one of those numbers and it is seconded, we will reopen to the public to speak to that that item.

But in the meantime, if anyone in the electorate would like to speak to any specific item or to the budget as a whole, we would welcome your comments. Is anyone from the public here would like to comment on the budget presentation up to this point? Seeing none, do we have so what? We have we have the resolution. Yes.

So, I will now go through each item and ask the RTM for their comments or no comments. And if I get no comments, we will move on to the next item and then approve the budget as a whole. So, the first item is general government. Does any RTM member have a comment on the $8,531,484? Yes. Miss Bateau?

Wendy Bateau District 8. This isn't so much a comment on the 8,000,000, etcetera. I just would like to remind the public and maybe even members of the RTM. Sorry. Members of the of the RTM. Can anybody hear me now? Yeah. Yeah? Okay. The budget, as Danielle alluded to, is kind of the the physical manifestation of town values.

It's it's a blueprint of what we care about and why we do what we do. And the RTM committees, when they meet to go over budgets, we don't just look at at percent increases and how little everybody can get away with doing. There are a number of our town departments that basically aren't expected to bring in revenue and what the committees look at is are they able to do their jobs adequately or even superbly given the resources they have in the context of of whatever environment we find ourselves in So, for example, and I say this because I know about the human services department and not because the human services department knows what I'm gonna say, they raise over over half of their own budget through their donations and through grants that they obtain. They're not supposed to be they're not supposed to be revenue generators. Same thing for the police department and the fire department.

So, and conservation and planning and zoning. So, we say that the board of finance and the finance committee looks at whether or not decisions are going to improve property values in the town. I accept that this is a budgetary financial discussion, but there are other things that approve that improve property values in towns such as the town values that appeared on the presentation. Thank you.

Thank you Ms. Bateau. Any other comments on the general budget item? Alright. Seeing none we're moving on to public safety which is $28,567,135 Any comments on public safety?

Alright. Moving on to public works. $14,614,891. Again, all of these amounts have been to committee meetings where they have been unanimously approved. So, this is good. Human services, $1,808,290. Anyone in the RTM like to comment on that? Seeing none, parks and rec 981-1907 No. Pension OPEB and insurance $20,558,844. Yes, Ms. Wiley.

Thank you so much. So forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this. I emailed mister Conrad tonight about the fire department. After I saw the fire department, which I realized we're talking about OPEB, I saw an article in the Westport Journal about the fact that we have lost several firefighters to other towns due, if I understood correctly, their post retirement offerings in our town. And I believe mister Conrad said that it has something to do with the OPEB offerings that we're having now.

Now I haven't been to these meetings. I don't understand it. But it seems that based on the numbers, what we had last year when we already lost these firefighters, if I understood correctly, now it's even lower. I don't understand. I don't understand how we're going to keep our firefighters here. We have values in this town, something I value, our fire department. So, again, maybe I'm not asking the right question, but anyone who knows how to explain this to me is welcome to. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Wiley. Would anyone like to expand on that? What? Mr. Hammer.

So, is a confusing issue and the press doesn't always get the fullness of the issue. The main focus is that there are two types of retirement plans, defined benefit and defined contribution. Defined benefit is a retirement plan that many of our parents might have had in their corporate jobs whereby the company promised to pay a certain amount of benefits over a period of time based upon your longevity, but it was a fixed amount you knew you were going to get and you were entitled. Almost a generation ago, we began to see the emergence of divine contribution plans, which some people call IRAs, four zero one ks's. I'm sure those are well known.

And those are a function of how much money you decide to put into the plan over time. Our town departments, specifically the fire department, has preferred to have a defined benefit plan as opposed to defined contribution plans. I'm not going to give an opinion at this point as to whether one's better or not. It's all a function of the math and who does the investing and how does it come out over time. But one of the issues that has been cited in the negotiations with the fire department is the preference that firefighters have for a defined benefit plan.

The problem with defined benefit plans is they tend to be much more costly for the town than defined contribution plans. They're more costly to administer, And in general, the level of benefits are more costly to achieve. So, that is occasionally cited as one reason that people would prefer to work somewhere and not elsewhere. But what I would say is that the common practice across municipalities and corporations has been to move to defined contribution plans over defined benefit plans. So, that hopefully gives you background as to the issue that's at play.

From what I've heard with respect to the fire department negotiations, that may be an issue, but there are other contributing factors. It's never one factor, but that has been cited as a factor. Any further questions on that?

Ms. Gale.

Thank you for that clarification, Jeff. I just wanted to say that I think you brought up a really good point and you have very good questions regarding this topic, but I wanna suggest that it's probably a better discussion to have on agenda item seven when we're talking about the appropriation for the fire department regarding those replacements for those employees that have left. So, that's what I wanted to mention. We I think we are gonna get to a conversation regarding that very topic later on in the agenda tonight.

Yes. We we certainly will, as we will in a few weeks when we start talking about the police and potential fire contract. But with let's just have a few more comments if we could and maybe talk through set the stage for this mister Mall. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Lewis Mall District 2. I don't feel it's appropriate to discuss this right now. We have ongoing negotiations. I've sat in on them. And there are a lot more issues than just a simple article in a town blog. So I would prefer us to leave the negotiations to the negotiators and not discuss this at this time or when we get to the agenda item further on in the meeting. Thank you.

Alright. With two votes there, I'll I'll move on or ask that we move on. But we'll get more to that, miss Wiley, I guess, in in the course of the next few hours maybe and the next few weeks. But that is apparently an issue. So, will Any other comments on the pension OPED at this point?

Seeing none, we'll move on to debt service of $4,278,633. Yes, Mr. Carson. We can certainly expect that number to rise, according to the chart in the board of finances presentation.

Joe Carson, district seven. I just have a question. On your presentation before, you showed a debt service number of $10,000,000 and you also showed a bar chart that our debt would be a 176,000,000. I may not have the right number. I just don't understand how those numbers equate. Because if you're borrowing a $176,000,000 at today's market rates, the debt service should be a lot higher than that number. So are those a projected debt service number that we have there? And what would be the running rate of our debt service going forward under that type of debt overhead?

Mr. Conrad or Ms. Dobin, do want have a run at that?

Good evening. Gary Conrad, Finance Director. The $178,000,000 we're projecting in the budget to be outstanding is due to the borrowing on the schools. We're looking at borrowing about $70,000,000 on the Long Lot School alone. In addition to that, there's other projects. So, the total that we're gonna be pushing out between the Board of Education and the town is about a little over $80,000,000 We'll be doing that in two bond issues. One is gonna be this month, May, and that's gonna be a smaller one because there's a delay in delaying the spending on the school. And the second part will be done in November. That'll be the majority of it. But, the total is gonna total outstanding next year will be about a 180,000,000.

But, I think, mister Conrad, the the portion here is just related to the town debt. So that 100 The

town the town debt is is actually reduced is reducing because we had a couple of items that have been refinanced that matured. So there's no more debt payments on that. And the amount that we're borrowing on the town side is minimal. The biggest the biggest chunk is $70,000,000 on the board of education.

We can we can delve more into that, mister Carson, but that's good explanation.

As I mentioned, the town debt service goes down. Town debt service and board of education and sewer, they're all separate pieces. The general fund pays for the portion that does the general obligation bonds of the town only. We associate all the schools and everything, including building of the schools, the paving of the schools, all the large projects they have, roofs and everything like that. Anytime we borrow on that, that's associated with the debt debt associated with school buildings.

The town this year has only had a few projects out there. And with the money that we paid down, we're basically in a net area of either breakeven or going down. And that's the principle that we paid off on some refunding that was done over five years ago. They've all matured. We have no debt payments on those bonds that were outstanding.

Mr. Conrad, sorry, would you have an average interest cost among all three in the I top of your

think the average, it's probably in the low threes. We're currently, the bond market today has a AAA in Connecticut around there was two out there this month. One was at 3.29% and the other was at a 3.43%. That one didn't that only had a single rating for AAA. So, we'll be looking under 3.5%. There's a big difference between the Fed funds and our fund and municipal funds. They vary some, but if you were to borrow on the Fed fund side, you'd be looking at a twenty year of, like, over 4%. We're almost a 100 basis points below that.

So that helps keep that number a lot lower. Thank you. Thank you, mister Carson. Mister Tate.

Chris Tate, team district one. Just a real dumb it down. Because we were going through the the debt, and some of my constituents, you know, freak out on on when you see that. It was, like, a 300 and something million dollars. But through our committees and how we granularly dug down to this, just so everybody understands, That's a a debt ceiling, but at the same time, we are paying off debt. So that should, in the long term, start to come down. It's not going to increase into the years because as you're looking for the taxes and all that, someone says 300,000,000, then we have you know, next year, it's $405,100. From what Gary was saying at one of our committee meetings is, you know, some of that's getting paid down, so it could be three in the next year. It could be a little bit less based on some things coming to maturity. That's still outstanding debt and coming to maturity.

So it's not gonna be 300, then next year is gonna be 500,000,000, and then all these things we can't do for our future. So, Norman, trying to say to help explain to the residents this number is not going like this. There's certain ways we pay down and Well, that number is a one hit. Spend. Yeah. Exactly. But it's a one time it's not a Well,

Jeff Jeff and I will comment on this together. My initial response would be that the number that we the number that we will be paying in debt service is going to relate to what we choose to spend in the future. So while we are paying down certain capital expenditures that we took on some time ago, to the extent we take on new ones, that's going to change. And there is a separation between the town budget and the improvements made to our educational facilities. But as Jeff referenced in his presentation, we are looking at potentially renovating or rebuilding another elementary school.

And if anybody takes a look at the ten year capital forecast for the town, there are a number of expensive improvements anticipated that we may be investing in soon on the town side.

Yeah. That's right, Danielle. I would just add that the debt service that we, as Greater Westport support, is bifurcated into schools, the general fund for the town, and sewer, and it flows through the accounts in different ways. So, what you were looking at there in debt service was reflective of the town only, not of the educational debt that we are taking on. Where, Chris, things could vary a little bit is once we take a step function forward and decide to build a new school or a combined facility or whatever it is, and we are going to borrow that money, that is where you will begin to see the spikes.

And so while our debt amounts will come down since they're either paid down or they're in a sinking fund over time, there will be more of an increase as we take on those larger projects than more of a decrease. And that's just the way it works. But it won't be as we've seen this year. I think we approved whatever the number was for long lots last year. We are only now just beginning to draw down debt.

One draws debt in different tranches across a project's life. Might draw down a small amount at the very beginning to fund some of the soft costs, and then you have construction costs. You'll draw down a larger amount, and so on and so forth. So, the key is, of course, to project that out and figure out what your burden is over time because, again, you have amounts that you're pulling down and amounts that you're retiring, and it's to keep that level beneath a certain threshold so we maintain our triple A rating that much of the forecasting is generated for. As Gary said, because we have a triple a rating, our borrowing costs are very, very favorable relative to even the federal government at this point.

Thank you.

Thank you, mister Hammer. Miss Dobin, Any other comments on debt service? Seeing none, other financing use is $1,368,165 Any comments on that? Seeing no comments, the board of finance recommendation for the first electman's budget is $89,539,349. Do we have a resolution?

Resolve that the first electman's budget items recommended by the board of finance and approved or amended by the representative town meeting be adopted. See, in the sum of 97,000,089

million.

Oh, 89

Million $5.39 $3.49.

Oh, we have the different script. Okay. And the sum of $89,539,349 for the first electorate budget is hereby appropriated to meet expenditures, and such some some shall be added to the amount appropriated for the other agencies and organizations budget and the board of education budget.

So, thank you, miss Carpenter. Mr. Kling, we're gonna go straight to the vote. All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstentions? And on the phone, Ms. Pietock?

I'm here

in person

now. Oh, you're here. Yeah. There you are. Oh, sorry. Didn't see you back there. So, you were a yes. And, Ms. Cohn?

Yes.

Mister Moore?

Yes.

And miss Naaman? Yes. That's unanimous. And I'm a yes. 32

to zero. Three now. Charlie Lucas is in the back.

Oh, Charlie's back there too. Good. Okay. 330. Thank you. And then we will move on to the other agencies and organizations. So could we have another resolution?

Yes. Which is the There you go.

I just wanna make sure I'm getting it right.

Dollar amount. $7.07 $0.04 $3.18.

Yep.

Resolve that the other agencies and organizations budget items recommended by the board of finance and approved or amended by the representatives how meeting be adopted. And the sum of $7,704,318 for the other agencies and organizations budget is hereby appropriated to meet expenditures, and such sum shall be added to the amount appropriated for the first lightman's budget and the board of education's budgets.

Great. Oh, do we have a second? Do we have a second, mister Kling?

Second. Thank

you. Thank you. So now we're we're gonna go a little bit differently. We're gonna go with each line item and we'll seek public then RTM comment on each of the items. The first item is the health district and the amount is $624,653. Does anyone from the public have a comment on the health district? Seeing none, does anyone in the RTM have a comment on the health district? Alright. The second is the library. And, the library appropriation budget is $6,129,557 and the library pension amount is $385,792.

So, the total is $6,515,349. Does anyone from the public have a comment on the on the library budget? Seeing none, does anyone from the RTM have a comment on the library budget? Alright. We'll move on to Earthplace. The amount is $105,000. Does anyone from the public have a comment on Earthplace? And does anyone from the RTM oh, mister Moll, come on down.

Lewis Mall, District 2. First of all, I'd like to thank the board of finance for your presentation and the fact that you listed that you were taking a look at nonprofits. And I agree with you that we should always take a real hard look on that. I have no problem with what Earthplace does for the town of Westport. I think that the services that they provide are fantastic.

What I always have complaint about is that when I look at their revenues, they list under municipalities $105,000. And, just In their narrative, they said that they studied 19 rivers in 12 towns, and then under the rivers research program, five schools in five towns in Fairfield County, and then they monitored two harbors, Saugatuck Harbor and Norfolk Harbor. And my complaint has been, and it continue to be, is under their budget, as they present their own budget, they lump us in as municipalities. Westport is the only community that contributes to Earthplace, and yet they provide this service to over 12 towns. I would like to see more towns contribute to Earthplace's budget or Earthplace fess up and own up that the only people that give them money is Westport.

I made that request last year, and I'm gonna make it again this year. And the reason why is if you we should we we could use $105,000 for part time employees for our parks department to clean up all of our parks and get we have a terrific park superintendent that is doing fantastic work. The other thing is that my tenure of being on the rtm we're close to a million dollars that we have spent on earth place and zero on Lily and Wadsworth. So I'm just asking earth place to own up and fess up and say municipality is really the town of West Port that gives 105,000. You give credit and recognition where it's due.

Thank you.

Thank you, mister Mull. Anyone else from the RTM like to comment on Earth Place? Miss Bateau?

Wendy Bateau, District 8. I don't disagree with Lou. And by the way, I didn't thank you guys. That was a really terrific presentation and I hope it's online so I can copy all those pages. One of the things about Earthplace is that it does provide services to townspeople and particularly children of the town that other other towns don't get.

And it would be useful, I think, to have those enumerated maybe for next year's budget because because they actually do. And in addition, Earthplace, the library, and later on, we'll hear about the farm, not to mention the board of education, the largest part of our budget. These are those places that don't they're not there to earn us money. They're there for us to do the good things we wanna do. The the services that Earthplace provides aren't just valuable in terms of cash value.

They're valuable in terms of in terms of promoting what Westport still, I hope, feels and thinks itself to be.

Thank you, miss Bateau. Anyone else from the RTM on the Earthplace budget? Seeing none, the Westport Transit District, the amount is $459,316. Would anyone like to comment on the transit district from the RTM or the public? Seeing none.

Mister Mandel recuses himself from the Earthplace budget. Mister Gold recuses himself from the West Port Transit District budget. The total is 7,704,318, and we will vote on the following resolution. The other agencies and organization budget items recommended by the board of finance approved or amended by the representative town meeting be adopted and the sum of 7,704,318 for the other agencies and organizations budget is hereby appropriated to meet expenditures and such sum shall be added to the amount appropriated for the first electman's budget and the board of education budgets. All those in favor?

One question, Jeff.

Yeah. I

vote for the resolution of recusing myself as part of it.

Well, we'll note that you were voting for the whole thing and that you recused yourself from that part of it. Duly Duly noted. Any opposed? Any abstentions? And on the phone, Ms. Cohn?

Yes.

Mr. Moore? Yes. Ms. Nayman?

Yes.

Passes so that passes 30 what did we say? 33? So, mister Conrad, I ask you to confirm that the total general fund budget, including the outside agencies, of 7,704,318 equals $97,243,667.

Correct.

That's correct according to mister Conrad. Therefore, tomorrow we will approve the education budget, add this onto it for the total town budget. So, miss Dove and mister Hammer, thank you very much for that. We have some of the administrative stuff to do and some of the other points of the budget to do. But thank you all for the general town budget. We'll now move on to item two of the call, which is the railroad parking fund.

To take such action is the meeting may determine upon the recommendation of the board of finance to adopt a budget for the town railroad parking fund for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 to make such specific appropriations as appear advisable.

And this is one of those, remaining items that is, user generated. People, the railroad pay for this. It's administered administered by the police department. Chief Farrell and chief Paulson are here to discuss it, but I don't think we will unless there are questions. Are there any questions on the Railroad Parking Fund budget, which many of us have already reviewed and voted on?

Are there any questions from the public or the RTM? Seeing none, we will vote on the following resolution. Resolved that the town railroad parking fund budget for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 as recommended by the board of finance and approved or amended by the representative town meeting be adopted and the sum of $1,995,978 is hereby appropriated to meet expenditures. All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstentions? Miss Cohn?

You do public act. Yeah. Didn't read my resolution, but you

did public Okay. Mister Moore?

Yes.

And miss Neyman?

Yes.

Great. 33 to nothing.

Yeah.

And will the deputy moderator read item three of the call?

Read, to take such action as the meeting may determine upon the recommendation of the board of finance to adopt a budget for the town sewer fund for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 and to make such specific appropriations as appear advisable.

Are there any members of the Westport electorate who would like to comment on that item? Seeing none Right. Do we have a motion a resolution. Go ahead.

What's the dollar?

$6,000,002.04 $6.05 $0.01.

$2.04 $6.05 $0.01. Okay.

That's really good.

Resolved that the town sewer fund budget for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 is recommended by the board of finance and approved or amended by the representatives how meeting be adopted. And the sum of 6,000,200 oh, sorry.

$2,000,002.46

$1.59 is hereby

five zero one.

501. 6246501 is hereby appropriated to meet expenditures. Start.

Thank you, miss Kirk. Mister Kling. Any members of the RTM like to comment on the sewer fund, which is, as we know, funded by the sewer users? Seeing none, well, we'll vote on the following resolution that resolved the sound sewer fund budget for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 as recommended by the board of finance and approved or amended by the representative town meeting be adopted in the sum of 6,246,501 is hereby appropriated to meet expenditures. All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstentions? Miss Cohn? Yes. Mr.

Moore?

Yes.

Ms. Schaemen?

Yes.

Thank you. 33 to one. And item number four of the call, please.

Take such action as the meeting may determine upon the recommendation of the board of finance to adopt a budget for the Wakeman Town Farm Fund for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 and to make such specific appropriations as appear advisable.

Thank you. Any members of the Westport electorate like to comment on this item? Seeing none, do we have a resolution?

Resolve that the Wakeman Town Farm Fund budget for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 is recommended by the board of finance and approved or amended by the representative town meeting be adopted. The sum of $630,000 is hereby appropriated to meet expenditures.

Second.

Thank you, miss Garth and mister Klang. Anyone from the RTM like to comment on this? Anyone from the RTM? Seeing none, I think we'll just go straight to the vote. All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstentions? Ms. Cohn? Yes. Mr. Moore?

Yes.

Ms. Schneeman?

Yes.

That passes 33 to nothing. Thank you, everybody. Would the deputy moderator read item five of the call, some of our administrative aspects?

To take such action as the meeting may determine to require that property for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 shall be due and payable in four quarterly installments and to designate the dates of the first days of July, October, January, and April as the dates upon which such installments shall be due and payable and that all taxes in an amount of $100 or less shall be due and payable in a single installment on the July.

Thank you, miss Karp. Any members of the Westport Electorate like to comment on this item? Seeing none, do we have a resolution?

Resolve the property taxes for the fiscal year ending 06/30/2027 shall be due and payable in four quarterly installments, and the dates upon which such quarterly installments are to be due and payable shall be the July, October, January, and April, subject to any applicable tax relief deferral programs, and be it further resolved that all taxes in an amount of $100 or less shall be doing payable in a single installment on the July, subject to any applicable tax relief deferral programs. Thank

you, miss Carpenter, mister Kling. I think we will move straight to the vote on this one. All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstentions? And Ms. Cohn? Yes. Mr. Moore? Yes. Ms. Nayman?

Yes.

Great. And with the 33 motion passes 33 to zero. And with the, deputy moderator read item six of the call.

To take such action as the meeting may determine to require that the motor vehicle tax shall be due and payable in a single installment.

Anyone from the electorate like to comment on that? Seeing none, do we have a resolution?

Resolved. That the motor vehicle tax shall be due and payable in a single installment subject to any applicable tax relief deferral programs.

Any comments from the RTM? Oh, thank you, mister Kling. That's a comment. Yeah. There we go. Any comments? All those in favor? Any opposed? Any abstentions? Ms. Cohn? Yes. Mr. Moore?

Yes.

Ms. Schneeman?

Yes.

Well, well done. We've passed the main part of the budget oh, well, the town part of the budget, education, to come tomorrow. But that's all we have to do on the budget for tonight. But I was going to thank a whole lot of people as I did earlier on to make sure I caught them, but I'm glad I did because I see our fire department out there. I see our first selectman out there. And Gary Conrad, of course, out there. So thank you guys, and thank everybody who helped us work through this budget over the last four months. And thanks to all of you for moving this along quickly. It was a really benign season, I think, and everybody really did a wonderful job. So thank you.

But we have one more item, item number seven.

Yes. To take such action as the meeting may determine upon the recommendation of the board of finance and request by the fire chief to approve an appropriation in the amount of $495,615 to the general fund account funds for covering the costs related to hiring for five unanticipated openings.

Thank you, miss Carr. Come on down, chief. Welcome. You. Thanks for hanging around for item number seven.

Thank you for having us. Good evening, everyone. Nick Marsan, fire chief. I'm here to ask the RTM tonight to approve a $495,615 appropriation to cover costs for five firefighter departures during this past fiscal year, all of them unanticipated. The board of finance approved it unanimously, beginning of last month, and the public protection and finance subcommittees, recommended the same unanimously.

So thank you, for that. The costs associated with this request are not discretionary by any means. They're all they're all pretty much spent already. We have a minimum staffing of 15 personnel per shift, is contractual. So to incur five unanticipated openings, that means until we get to recruit, vet, and train new firefighters to take that place, we are covering the overtime, paying the overtime for that.

Because we had to hire actually nine new firefighters because of some expected departures on top of the five that we did not expect, we've tapped out on all of our personal protective equipment and gear lines. So we've paid for the physicals, the training. Right now, what the request tonight is to help us get as whole as we could possibly get as well as help us continue to pay for what we need to pay for prior to the end of the fiscal year. For the gear, we have to procure as well as the other thing the other training that's mandatory that we have to get done. I know there's been talk about the retention issue, and it's probably broader than tonight's vote and is being addressed right now through the channels of collective bargaining and pension negotiation.

So tonight's ask is this, to, help us close the fiscal year out, make as close to whole as possible, and keep the department ready for the next call. What are your questions?

Thanks. We'll have a committee report first

Okay.

And and then come back to you as people have questions, chief. Thank you. Thank you. Mister Izzo.

Chief? Chief, how are you? Good to see you gentlemen. Jimmy Izzo, RTM three. Wow. That's a lot. We met on April 16, public protection committee and finance committee. Chief Marcin summed it up. Basically, this is an emergency appropriation to hire new firefighters. We went over the situations.

There were not one specific situation. There were other reasons, then I think we'll get into that at another discussion as well. In attendance from finance, Seth Braunstein, Joe Carson, Jill Grayson, Nancy Cale, Pam Kopech, Melissa Levy, Charles Lucas, public protection, Jimmy Izzo, Candace Banks, Lewis Mall, Claudia Sham, Alma Sorelli, Karen Kramer, Andy Colabella, Dick Lowenstein, Gail Cockendale, and I believe Pam Kopak also doing double duty. The vote was unanimous from both finance and public protection to approve this appropriation. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Rizzo. Are there any members of the Westport electorate who'd like to comment on this request? Seeing none, do we have a resolution?

Resolved that upon the recommendation of the board of finance, a request by the fire chief, the sum of $495,615 to the general fund account funds for covering the costs related to hiring for five unanticipated openings is hereby appropriated.

Thank you, miss Garth and mister Kling. Any members of the RTM like to comment on this? Mister Braunstein? As

far as

I know, but I heard someone hang up.

Yes.

I didn't see anyone.

Someone's phone's here too, by the way. You don't wanna leave home without that.

Good evening, everybody. Seth Braunstein, RTM district six and chair of the finance committee. Like miss Wiley, this was an issue that definitely caught my attention. And I think it's important that we, put some parameters around this discussion because Lou's point is a very valid point. There is an ongoing collective bargaining, process that is taking place literally as we speak here this evening.

Not maybe actively tonight, but we're sort of in in that process. And that will reach a logical conclusion in the not too distant future. But what I wanted to highlight and the reason I wanted to stand up here this evening was one of the reasons we're losing people is because these gentlemen in the department do an excellent job training and preparing the people that staff the department. And once the town has invested in that training for these individuals, they actually become far more attractive and marketable to neighboring communities. So we we need to understand there are multifaceted issues at play here that ultimately are are complex.

It's not as simple as just, you know, renegotiate the pension obligation. That's one piece of a much larger puzzle. And we should, you know, recognize that we have an excellent department staffed by excellent people, and we have a a process to make these people into attractive candidates for other departments. So that was all I wanna say. Thank you.

Thank you, miss Bronson. Anyone else from the RTM like to comment on this? Anyone else from the RTM? Oh, mister Colabella.

You very much.

Don't want that to end up in the wrong hands. Andrew Colabella for District 4. Aside from what I read online, but what I have seen throughout the state of Connecticut as well as nationally is that pensions have been rolled back, and you've seen deferred compensation plans. I wanna be clear from the start. This is not a conversation about enhancing benefits for the sake of it. This is about public safety, workforce stability, and long term financial responsibility. Westport's fire department is made up of highly trained professionals who have options. And right now, personally, our hybrid retirement plan, in my opinion, is not competitive with surrounding towns. That's not opinion. That's a reality in today's hiring and retention environment.

When a firefighter leaves Westport, and I would guess we've had how many that have left? Five? Seven?

Last year, we've had five leave.

And then in the year before that, another four? We've had 11 total. Alright. So we see the trend here. You have 11 firefighters that have left this department.

There's nothing wrong with the department. What's happening now is that firefighters are thinking about their own personal means to survive as well as cost of living in the state of Connecticut, taxes, energy bills that are climbing. The majority of the firefighters that work for Westport don't even live that close to Westport anymore. They're usually 25 to 30 miles out, which is why part of the contract, you're allowed to live within a certain amount of distance because it's one on, two off, one on, three off. So you're able to live within a far amount of distance.

So we don't just lose an employee. We're losing experience, leadership, and institutional knowledge. Part of the job of being a firefighter is not just training that you receive at the academy, which is paramilitary. But you have to be able to know where every road is in town, including where all those fire hydrants are. How are firefighters supposed to learn and then take that institutional knowledge and not be able to apply it to the younger generation? Because that's what's happening. There's a huge gap. We haven't seen it in the police department. There's a huge gap of those who have pension that are older, and you have the lower and you have the lower tier that don't have the pension and they're younger. There's no incentive.

It's just it just doesn't work. And when those positions aren't filled immediately, the cost doesn't disappear. It shifts. Shows up in overtime, training new hires, and operational strain on the rest of the department. So while a hybrid plan may look cost effective on paper, the downstream impacts tells a different story.

There's also a piece of the conversation we shouldn't ignore, is that with a pension, there's security for their families. Firefighting is an inherently dangerous profession in the event of a line of duty death where not even two days ago, it's been 80 since we lost four of our firefighters in a tragic accident, we had one firefighter, Turk Ascoy, who succumbed to cancer due to his exposure of on his job. And luckily, we have one firefighter, Paul Spannado, who I grew up with that has fought cancel, fought cancer, battled it, and to this day talks about it throughout the Northeast. But what they're exposed to, unfortunately, leaves their families in dire straits when they when they pass on. That pension actually provides them with that type of sense of security.

The security isn't just about the employee. It's about ensuring their family is protected if the worst were to happen. The reality is simple. If we are not competitive, we become a stepping stone. We already have. You've lost 11 firefighters. Doesn't work. We invest in recruiting and training only to see that investment walk out the door to another town. Where's our fiscal responsibility? This is not about asking for something excessive.

It's about aligning with the market to ensure Westport remains a place where firefighters choose to build a career, not just start one. Again, they're not looking for a job. They're looking for a career. And I would respectfully say, this is also about staying in our lane. We rely on our professionals, our department leadership, and our subject matter experts in nearly every other area.

When they tell us there is a retention issue tied to compensation structure, we should take that seriously. At the end of the day, adjustments. The question is whether we can afford the cost of doing nothing. If we want to maintain the level of service our residents expect and deserve, we need to ensure we are supporting the people who provide it. So with those negotiations that are currently going on right now, take this seriously. We've already lost 11. We don't need to lose anymore. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Colabella. Anyone else from the RTM like to comment? Anyone else from the RTM? If not, we are voting on the following resolution that upon the recommendation of the Board of Finance and a request by the fire chief, the sum of $495,615 to the general fund account funds for covering the cost related hiring for five unanticipated openings is hereby appropriated. Do we need a roll call just to make sure everybody's still here?

Yeah. It can't hurt. I checked and everyone was here, but I'll do it fast.

But is every has anybody seen anyone leave? No? Alright. All in favor? Okay. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Miss Cohn? Yes. Mister Moore?

Yes.

Miss Nayman?

Yes.

So we're still at thirty three. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.

Thank you, mister moderator. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Great job tonight. We got the town budget. See you tomorrow night at 07:30. Thank

you. Don't worry. It's not a hot mic ish. We're done.