001This is NHTV2 North Haven Government Television, a service of North Haven Community Television. The following program is brought to you through the support of the town of North Haven. >> Good evening everyone. My name is Stacy Yarra. I am your town clerk and I'm also your tax collector. I'm also your registister of vital records. I'm also your unofficial decorator of town hall at Christmas time. I pretty much do whatever you need. If I get everyone settled, we'll start the meeting. Again, my name is Stacy Yarbor and um we're here to present this evening the tentative town budget. This is our town budget public hearing for the 2026 2027 fiscal year, also known as the 2025 grandless tax year, which is brought pursuant to section 705 of the town charter and Connecticut general statute section 7-344.
002First and foremost, give yourself a round of applause because you're participating and that's important. There are numerous forms of government in the state of Connecticut and we have the best as far as I'm concerned because it's the town meeting form of government. It's the public hearing form of government where you get to come out and you get to participate. That's democracy and action as far as I'm concerned. So, I'm going to give you quickly a history of a budget. I do it every year in case you're not familiar with it. And then we'll get to the meat of the hearing. Uh around November and December every year, budgets are being made by each department in town, including the board of education. In every new year, workshops are held for each department head goes before the
003board of finance to defend their budgets. the board of finance. This comes together with a preliminary B budget and it has three major parts. It's the grand levy, uh creation of the grand list and the uh prospective uh mill rate. Tonight is the public hearing and it's just a public hearing for both the town government which will go first and then the board of education which will follow up after. There's no voting tonight. This is not a um town meeting. And this is a public hearing. Now, the next step will be that the board of finance will meet on um Wednesday, April 15th in a few days to finalize hopefully finalize the budget. Then there's the Angel Town budget meeting on May 11th here at 7 PM. There will be voting that I on certain
004aspects of the prospective budget but not all items because the next step is the budget referenda which is Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. And so for the budget referenda, it's a paper ballot and you go to uh we just have one voting district for budget referendas and that is the at the Mildred Wakeley Recreation Center on seven Lindsley and it's one question yes or no. Also, if you're interested, I will have absentee ballots available in my office for the budget referenda. If you can't make it on the day of, I'll have those absentee ballots available April 30th in my office. Now, I'm going to turn over the proceedings and we're going to go in order of town meeting, excuse me, uh, town budget and then the board of education. And to give us a presentation and,
005uh, some information with regards to the town's budget, I'd like to invite Mr. Freda, our first selectman. Well, thank you very much for the applause. Perhaps at the end of this presentation, I won't you won't be getting applause, but uh thank you in advance anyway. I appreciate that. But I want to make sure we're hearing that NHTV the sound is not on for those that are watching on TV. Can we just double check that, please? All right. Very good. Thank you very much, Victor. Thank you, NHTV. So, we at tonight's meeting, I'll be presenting where we are right now on the town side of the budget. and Patrick Sturk, our superintendent, will be reporting on and presenting the board of ed side budget. So without further ado, let me take you through this. So if
006we look at the total 2026 fiscal year budget that starts on July 1st and we look at the current budget which is 2025 to 2026 we see a 3.4% 4% change on the town side and that dollar change is 2,277,554 on the capital. The capital you see a big spike there. I'm going to take you through that department by department a little bit later on here, but that represents a dollar change of 1,184,036. The contingency remains the same at $300, $300,000. And by the way, going back several years ago, that used to be $1 million. We cut that back to 300,000. We haven't used more than 300,000, although sometimes it gets very close, but that is the number right now. On the board of ed side, this shows a 6.35% increase. That represents an incremental
007amount of 4,349,487. So the total budget represents a 5.7% increase. And the total dollar increase is 7 million 811,77. Now, when we look at just the town side, the 2.2 million in terms of incremental spending, putting aside the capital, I'd like to take you through what that is comprised of. Out of that 2,247,000, 318,469 is for pension and social security contributions, payroll taxes, and pension obligations. The employee medical insurance on the town side increased to 1,144,778. When we look at the average wages for the town employees at 2.5% that represents another 562,000. So when we take the 2,277,554 and we look at the employee wage increase, the medical insurance increase and the social security and pension increase. The 252,281 represents the miscellaneous increases across all the departments. Largely you see the nondiscretionary what we have
008no control over that we have to be obligated to is the 1,144 the $562,046 and the 318,461. That's on the town side. When we look at the debt service in the town, we're still paying off firehouses, the police department, the middle school, and perhaps even one more year on this high school. But I wanted to share with you if there's any good news on the debt service that we actually decreased the debt service in this budget by 2.5%. Because as this is going on with um with the scale of debt, we're approaching a time when the debt service will be decreasing over the next couple of years. We see a small amount of decrease with the 2.5%. And uh short of any other bonding that we may have to do in the future for roadways
009or other buildings, um that's where it's at right now. and 6.3 million of that. We talk about this all the time, that's carried on the town side. The middle school is 6.3 million in debt versus the 10 million 250. So on the pie chart here, it's now a 50/50 split. The townside includes 2,117,000 in capital, 300,000 in contingency, and 10,250,000 in debt, of which 6.3 is on the town side on the town side for the middle school. Now, I've had this question asked, and this is the first time you're going to see me or that I've shown this chart, but uh I wanted to respond to some of the people who were watching that asked me this question. When we look at the employees on the board of ed and the town side, the board
010of ed uh now looking at this current fiscal year 568 on the town side it's about 333. It's a little bit deceiving because we see the fiscal year on both sides. So just to re repeat this, okay, 568 in this fiscal year, 333 on the town side. Those are the total employees including part- timerrs between the two portions of this town government, the town and the board of education. Let's take a look at this grandless growth which I was very optimistic about in January. But there were appeals and I wanted to share this with you because I've talked about this at the town board of finance meeting. So originally the grand list growth 2.7% which is considered very strong in municipal government. There are other cities and towns that would love to have a 2.7%
011granless growth that yielded $3.3 million in incremental revenue. But because it was a reval year now there was an appeal process like we have every March with the board of assessment appeals. The revised grandless growth after the adjudication of the appeals was 1.3%. Which is still pretty good. That yielded $1.6 million in incremental revenue. So, we lost 1.7 million versus the original projection. Now, look, I'll tell you what I'm not happy about is that we're yielding 1.6 million in incremental revenue, but we're spending 7.3 or 7.5 million in expenses. Normally, what you want to see is you want to see an equalization. What we want to see is municipal leaders, and all my colleagues, mayors and first selectmen across the state are going through the same thing. What we want to see is an equal
012distribution of increment incremental revenue and incremental expenses to marginalize tax increases. Let's take a look at the mill rate history here. If we go back to 2017 and we project here 2026, this budget is projecting to be a 1.5 mil increase. Now, there were revaluers in here. There were some decreases. There was no changes. But that's what what this budget will propose tonight before we get to the board of finance meeting Wednesday night and before we get to the May meeting, the May town budget hearing and before we get to the referendum. So that is a look back of the last 10 years in terms of what the mill rate has been here in North Haven. So let's take a look because I know I get this question all the time and you have to
013understand folks that I'm out there everywhere. Events, nights, entertainment that I get invited to and I hear it a lot. Mike, Mr. Freda, what does this budget look like in terms of tax increases coming? So, the average home value in North Haven is 448,747. The average assessment of course is the 70% which yields an average assessment of $314,123 the average home. But I took it a little bit further and I started this last year. Let's take a look at what the tax means in tax dollars on various style homes. For a Cape in North Haven, the appraisal is 360,761. You see the assessment at 252533. The current taxes on that type of house here in North Haven is $7,440. At the proposed mill rate, that would mean a annual tax increase for the average cape
014at $41 for that type of home. On a ranch, the appraisal is 368,331. The assessment is 257,832. So, the current taxes on that type of house in North Haven is $7,596. The proposed mill rate of a 31.04 yields a tax increase of $410 on the average ranch in North Haven. A split level that appraised value is 394,337. The assessment is 276 36. Current taxes $8,132. Proposed taxes $8571. So on a split it's $439. A raise ranch the appraisal is 416,83. The assessment 291 258. Current taxes $8,580. Proposed mill rate at 31.04 9,044 which is a $464 tax increase on a colonial. The appraised value as you see is 550,000 480. The assessed value 385 336. Current taxes 11,352. Proposed mill rate 31.05 11,965. And that represents a tax increase at this rate of $613 annual
015tax increase. We get a lot of questions, ladies and gentlemen, about how do you determine your taxes? Well, the simple mathematic formula is you multiply the assessed value, which is 70% of your appraised value, by the proposed mill rate, in this case 31.05, and then you divide it by a,000. So, if anyone needs to get this sent to you, you let me know, let us know. That is how it's calculated. the average house appraised value at 448,000. This is the average tax increase, I should said, on the average house appraised value. We see that on an average when you blend in all of those different home styles that I just mentioned, it's about $500, $499. I know there's been a lot of a lot of questions about capital in this budget. So, let me take
016you through what the town side of the budget is proposing on capital. This is a department by department. In the fire department, it's three trucks. Engine number two, it's 2024. Engine number seven, 2024. These are pumpers. Okay. And the amount that you see is the lease that we have that we're doing. We we're leasing to buy eventually. Each one of those represents 150,000 on engine 2, 150,000 on engine 7. We see extrication equipment at 40,000. And then on the new truck, the Quint uh that is the engine ladder. That truck release is uh that truck lease is 216,113 or 111 I'm sorry. So on the fire department the total capital is about 556,000. However, after discussions this week with our fire chief and with our deputy chief, although we can't make the change now, we're
017going to be restoring back the fire marshal and the OSHA equipment and taking out this extrication equipment and spend that on another day. So, we'll see that come to the board of finance tomorrow after feedback that I received from uh Chief Jen Yashevky and Deputy Chief Jeff Naples. On the police side, this budget includes uh includes four PD cruisers for a total of 200,000. Body armor for the police at 8,800 and then the emergency light bar and siren package that's 116,000. that is mandatory when new cruisers come in to our police department. They h have to be retrofitted for the emergency light bar and bar and siren package. Then there's this vertive UPS system that's 7,500. So on the police side, the capital request is 376,300. Now, the Department of Public Works, you see 884,500.
018The plan of conservation development has nothing to do with the public works department, but categorically we have to put it into the public works budget as does some of these other things like microfish uh machine at 12,000 and the building uh department EO scanning. The real infrastructure that public works is asking for even though it's this is budgeted for 884,500 is this refu truck the 33yard and also this hot box 134,000 and this Ford F350 rack and body at 72,000 and also you see 50,000 in there. that really has very little to do with public works in terms of streets and roads, but it has a lot to do with our engineering department, Andy Andy Bevela, who oversees engineering and building and land use. So, a lot of these are in the public works department,
019but they're generally needed as an example for the plan of conservation development. Every 10 years, every city and town has to move forward with this. We h we have no choice on this. Hence, you see the 150,000 in the public works budget. The uh community service recreation department, that's a pool locker room HVAC that's needed. That's 50,000. The senior citizen center needs to be painted 11,000. And then this is an annual expense, the pool and maintenance and repairs at 35,000. So the total request there is 96,000 on the library side 49,124. And you see the painting and the children's department and the building management software. In the finance department, we've actually cut this back a little bit. We plan for revaluation at every five years. Much to my chagrin and every other mayor and first
020selectman in the state, we have to plan for another reval in five years. And information technology 100,000. Now this is something we own some of these buildings. Okay. And this 17 Lindley, this is a situation where the the exterior of the building is sort of crumbling. So, we have to figure this out. We put it in there for 35,000 for sighting it. When I say the exterior, I mean the the the wood on the side, you know, that not so much on the inside, but on the outside, those panels are are deteriorating and cracking. Now the total capital in this budget is 2 million as I mentioned $117,036. Now I want to take you through because there's been a lot of discussion about how this budget season started and where we ended up as far
021as tonight's concerned. Originally, these were the requests 11.14 in the board of ed side, 5.3 on the town side, and then the the increase in capital here from the previous year. If we were break down, you see the mill rate, it all totals up to in the original request, a 2.66 mill rate increase. when we add up all the requests from the first iteration and series of requests in terms of that budget. Then the second iteration came at 9.95% on the BOE, 5.01 on the town and we see that that total mill rate in the second iteration that mill rate increase would have been 2.16 mills. when we get to where we are tonight. Um I know it's been very controversial the last board of finance meeting, but here's where we are tonight. The board
022of ed at 6.35, the town at 3.35 capital the increase the increase to get to 2,277,000 is 27 mills. So tonight we're at like 1.58. That's the mill rate as we stand and sit here tonight. The what the increase would be and I took you through all the different styles and homes there. So to recap this proposed budget as we are sitting tonight, 6.35 on the board of ed, 3.4 on the town. The 3.4 before we can make an argument that it supports the existing public service model, public safety, but it doesn't support the requests. And always remember this, ladies and gentlemen, and I said it at the last meeting, we don't cut budgets in terms of dollars. We give more money every year. What it gets cut, unfortunately, is the request for more money.
023So, we know we need more here. I wish we can do a lot more here in terms of infrastructure and more programs and everything we need, but that's where we stand tonight. Now, on the town side, it covers the inflationary increase in the existing services. I mentioned it before, paving a road, paving and milling a road. It was once $200,000. Now, it's $330,000 per mile. when we have to outsource outsource drainage those costs have gone up tremendously and sometimes I'm being very candid with you all that sometimes I sit back and I talk to our people internally and I say sometimes I think that people think that government's the golden goose that we can continue to spend money and try and it's difficult to manage and marginalize the inflationary aspect of the town and the
024board of education It's a painful reminder to me that government is like our own homes. Everything is going up. UI bills are going up. There'll be other increases in in other things that we see. The prices are going up. And it government is no different. And I wanted to share that that this budget covers the inflationary increase in some of the existing services, not the requested services, the existing services. And it provides one 2.1 million in capital expenditures 2027. Here is the remainder of the meetings. Wednesday night. This Wednesday, Board of Finance, 6:30, we'll be back here at the high school. I think we booked that. I think we booked the high school. The annual budget meeting from that point goes to May 11th at 7 p.m. here at the high school. The budget referendum
025is Tuesday, Tuesday, May 19th, and all the voting will be done at the Mildred Wakeley Rec Center. Now, I'm going to share something with each and every one of you. I don't know if we can do this because I get a lot of feedback from all of the people I see during the week, on the weekends, every week, every month. People say, "Can we change the ballot and see is it too high or too low?" Well, the attorneys have weighed in and the answer is no. But somewhere, I hope, and please do not consider this a commitment. This is a work in progress what I'm about to tell you. Somewhere along the line, I'd like to see if we can do a Gallup poll, a Quinnipic poll, or something even putting on our website at
026least to frame the questions differently before we get to the referendum on May 19th. I'm not sure where that's going to end up, ladies and gentlemen. It's very complicated, but that is something I'm hearing a lot. Some people want it less, some people want it more. and our form of government and what we're told by the attorneys, it's a standard question, yes or no. And even from the feedback that we got here, we sat here, you know, a couple of weeks ago, people want they want to know whether it's more or less. I'm not sure if we can do it. I can't do it. We can't do it on the referendum question, but maybe there's a way around it to see if what I just mentioned can be done. And that's the presentation ladies and
027gentlemen. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. >> Thank you, Mr. Freda. At this time, Mr. Shel come up with the board of education's budget. Good evening everyone. I will be presenting the board of education's budget for the 2627 school year. Provided through this budget are resources to provide instruction for over 3,000 students, mental health, nutrition, and medical care to allow students to access instruction. Specialized services required for all students to achieve their potential. Diverse opportunities for students to engage in activities outside of their curricular pursuits and safe and reliable transportation to and from school. The following couple slides uh will highlight the district's return on the town of North Haven's investment. The average DUID D per pupil expenditure is $22,782. North Haven's current PPE is $20,381, which ranks us 20th out of
02824 districts in our DUI. And please note that North Haven has dropped from 15th to 20th over the past two years. As I say each year, North Haven spends less than most, but our return is exceptional. This year, Greenacres Elementary School was recognized as a blue ribbon school. This recognition is similar to winning an Oscar or the Super Bowl in the world of education. However, it is much more exceptional than these awards because Green Acres needed to demonstrate excellence over the better part of a decade to be awarded Blue Ribbon status. The district continues The continues to excel in the state standardized assessments. We are ranked in the top five of 24 dur district dur D districts in math, English language arts and science. And congratulations to our students and teachers on these remarkable accomplishments.
029Annually, the Connecticut State Department of Education releases accountability reports for each school and each dis I'm sorry, for each district and each of their schools. And within these reports, they identify schools of distinction based on certain growth and other standards. This past year, Ridge Road Elementary, Monoise Elementary, and Greenacres Elementary were each recognized as schools of distinction. Now, I'll be moving on to the board of education's budget for the 2627 school year. This slide demonstrates the four areas that drive the board's budget increase for the 2627 school year. Three of these four areas total just about $4 million$4 million additional dollars to the budget with medical and dental insurance carrying the bulk of the increase at just over $3 million. As you can see, the five new special education positions were removed from the original
030proposal. These five positions would have cost the district approximately $350,000. Although removed from the 6.35% increase, I believe it is it is important to expand on the proposed special education positions. The district is in need of three additional special education teachers for three of our specialized programs. An additional speech and language pathologist and occupational therapist are also included. These positions are necessary for the following reasons. To remain compliant with the students individualized education plan or IEPs. To ensure that necessary staff is in place in order to keep students safe and meet their goals and object goals and objectives of their IEPs. To ensure that case loads for our special education and support staff members are manageable so they can meet the needs of students and remain compliant with their IEPs. in short, prevent our teachers
031from burning out. The district currently invests $5.6 million in eight different special education programs. Without these programs, the district would be spending an approximate $21 million to educate students at outofd district programs. This is an annual savings of 15.5 million. With this being said, these programs continue to grow and our students require additional and necessary services to meet their potential. This is why the board and the district continues to support these exemplary programs. In regards to the request for a new speech and language pathologist, we currently contract to an outside provider to supplement the district's mandated speech and language services. For a full-time SLP, a provider costs the district $157,000. If we hire our own, the cost will be approximately half that amount. The overall increase to the medical and dental insurance line for 2627
032school year is just over $3 million. This increase is determined by our actuaries from Brown and Brown. The overall increase for the workman's compensation insurance line for the 2627 school year is just over $530,000. This increase is reflective of the actuarial recommendation increase provided to the board of education by the town and our excess cost reimbursement is projected to be just over a million dollars. And it's always wise to be conservative with in this projection as we're never quite sure how much the state of Connecticut will actually reimburse each district. The board of education the board of education budget has taken numerous forms this budget season. It began with a board of education approved 11.14% increase. This increase included the five special education positions I mentioned earlier in the presentation. On March 2nd, the board
033revisited the budget to make additional adjustments and cut their increase to 9.95%. This cut eliminated the five new special education positions. However, it included an early retirement incentive plan for our certified teaching staff. And on April 2nd, the board held their fourth budget workshop and reduced the budget to 6.35%. This final declination was based on information received from the board of finance. I will go into more detail about what the district lost at a 6.35% increase. And just for clarity, the board of education budget for the 2627 school year is 72,845,345, which equals a 6.35% increase over this year's current operating budget. So what remains in the 6.35% increase? All student centered programming stays. creative learning program, future problem solvers, musicals, choir, clubs. All that is in place this year will continue to be in
034place next year. All athletic programming, all teams at the middle school and the high school will remain in place. All world language pro programming at the middle and high school will stay and all instructional supplies will remain at the 2526 funding level. So, what is lost in the 6.35% budget increase? Five proposed certified special education positions that I mentioned earlier, eight current certified positions, four current non-certified positions, $366,000 in supplies, curriculum writing, summer intervention and enrichment programs, and now more than ever, we are becoming more reliant on grants to support the district expenses. In regards to capital expenditures, there was no funding for capital projects in the original 11.14% increase, and there continues to be no funding for capital projects and the 6.35% increase. So, this slide is a representation of what makes up the
0356.35% increase in dollars. So, just over $3 million is dedicated to medical and dental insurance. Just over $1 million, and I apologize, it's so small. Just over $1 million is dedicated to salary increases and benefits. And $433,000 is dedicated to purchase services, professional services, and transportation. So, these areas total 4,467,64 or 6.22% of the 6.35% increase, which leaves the district $1,93 left of that increase for operations, supplies, and equipment. The following are the district priority capital projects. Again, there is no funding for these projects, but we still provide a list uh for the board of education and the town. These next three slides list the current priority projects for the district. The projects total just over a million dollars with the largest pro project being the replacement of the gym floor here at the high
036school is a rough cost about $650,000. In closing this one here, I just would like to reiterate the information from one of the previous slides. There's $3 million dedicated to medical and dental insurance as part of the 6.35% increase. A million dollars dedicated to salary and benefits. And $433,000 dedicated to purchase services, professional services, and transportation. That's 6.22% of 6.35% we're receiving as the board of education. That leaves under $2,000 of the increase left to the operations, supplies, and equipment with no capital funding. Thank you for your time this evening. Thank you, Mr. Stur. At this time, now that we've heard both presentations, both the town's budget and the board of education budget, we are going to open this um up to public questions, um requests for information, whatever you'd like. And so, there are
037just a few ground rules. Number one, when you come up, I I need you to go to this right here, this microphone up front. I need you to state your name and your address. I need you to be nice to me, to everyone, to each other. We need to have civility and I don't want us to to have this turning into a fighting match. Also, uh there's a five minute per speaker limit, which I will keep track of. That doesn't mean you can't come back later, but everybody who comes up their first go around until everyone has a chance, you have a fivem minute limit. Who would like to speak? Come on up. >> Hello. Uh, my name is Scott Freriedman. I'm at 17 Cooper Road. I feel like I need to give an addendum
038to the board of ed presentation and simply state that we're talking about losing 12 educators and not gaining five that are required to run programming that our district has promised to students in the classroom. I also want to point out that on the town side, there are four firefighters that have been requested now at least two, three, four years in a row. Um, we had a a major and tragic fire last year on George Street. this year on George Street. We need our firefighters to be able to get to and and battle the fires that happen in our town. We have over the course of the decade plus I I've been here and it's more like 12 or 13 years now. We have been trying to keep budgets in check and have zero dollar or
0390% increases. And that has happened a number of years. And while that sounds great, what it means is that we're not getting the money we need to do the things we need to do as a town. And I'm not going to be any, you know, I'm just going to say it clearly. If we had raised taxes by cost of living adjustments only 3% every year for the number of years that we had where we had 0% increases, we would have had more money in the budget. My taxes would have been exactly what they are this year. And I think that was from 2018 to 2025 or 24. But we have a constant battle to avoid tax increases. and we're going to do damage to our town. Not not tomorrow. You saw what the superintendent put
040up on the screen. Let's be clear. We're 20th of 24 in terms of per pupil spending. How long do you think our fifth and fourth out of the 24 rankings are going to stay? We've just cut one of the programs that meant I would say a lot to Ridge Road and Greenacres families and it wasn't budgetary, at least not directly. But the problem is we can't have those discussions because we just spent six months cutting 12 teachers that are currently working in our schools. 12 educators. And on top of that, we're not hiring five that are for programs that people have signed up for and need to be educated in our district. We talk about overspending on outsourcing special education services, but how do we keep students in district if we don't have the speech
041and language pathologists, the special ed teachers that are needed? So, I urge you, I mean, frankly, I would love to vote this budget down tonight and request that we get the money we need for fire department and for the board of education. And I would ask that we look at the fact that the town had zero staff reductions. Zero. There's still $2.1 million in capital expenditures. I would like to see us take some of that money and not get four new police cruisers with light bars and packages. I want to see us hire the four firefighters, which is less than $500,000 a year. And I want to see us keep our teachers in the schools, in the classrooms where they belong. Thank you. Who would else like to speak? Come on forward, please. Come on.
042You know you want to talk. Come on, Mrs. White. And just for the record, there are bud uh budgetary uh department staff reductions. That's an incorrect assessment on the town side. All you got to do is look at the budget packet. >> Hi, Mrs. White. Mary White Summer. So, I support public safety, both fire and police. You all know I do. Um, I did a little math. So, we have the four cruisers, 200,000. the four light bar packages 160,000 for a total of 360,000 and the cost for the four new firefighters that were removed from the budget is $355,292. So what does that mean? That means if the police department would support their brothers in the fire department and say, "We'll we'll pass on those uh four cruisers. I'm sure the cruisers that they'll be
043replacing are not 25 years old." Um I'm sure they could go another year. Then we could ask the board of finance if they would move that money and then put the four new firefighters back in the budget. And I'm wondering if people in this room would support this. So when you come up to the microphone, and I'm sure people are going to be supporting the board of education, which I also support the board of education, can you please ask the board of finance when they meet on Wednesday to make that change? And then let's see what else do I want to say? Okay. So, my question, my next uh comment has to do with if this budget is voted down, we know that the board of finance views that um views that voting down as
044they have to look at the budget again and they have to lower the proposed mill rate increase. So my question is what would the estimated amount of the board the board of finance would look to cut on each side of the budget if you know estimations there um if the 1.58 mill rate increase is voted down like what would the board of finance look at as far as okay we need to lower this mill rate proposal. So, what would you look to be lowering it? Because we learned that one mill is $4 million. >> Why don't we We're going to say a couple things even one mayor. We're going to start with Rich, please. >> Yeah. I just want to I just want to clarify the point. Two firemen cost us more than $330,000. Um
045the number you may be seeing in the fire budget is a fraction of firemen cost without equipment about 165,000 per man. When you add in their medical, their post-employment benefits, you know, their their pension 457 when it all adds up, they're more like 165 per person. I wanted to just make sure you add that. So when you when you look at the 330, you're probably closer to half of what it costs for four men. That's three lakh what two men cost. It's in other lines in the budget. It's in the medical line. It's in the pension line. But I just want to make sure you're clear. Do you understand that um just looking at what the ple fire may have in as as a line item that's strictly wages doesn't include payroll tax doesn't include
046benefits and even that doesn't include any of the stipens they get there's a lot of other things that make it up. So as a rule of thumb if you want to think about what they cost they're in the 165 range. I wanted to just make sure that was clear. Now >> can I you know respond to that the 355 292. So you're saying that was just for the wages. >> So when you remove that for four firefighters. So when you remove that, did you also remove the >> removed it on? Removed it on medical line items. >> Bunch of line items get cut along with it. Social security, payroll taxes, all gets cut. >> It wasn't just then. It was for um it was four firemen. There was a policeman. Um there's a person that
047was eliminated in um finance. There was a person eliminated in public works. There was a person eliminated in the tax office. Those all backed off on multiple lines. But I mean, I'm of the mindset that we all know that we only have 11 volunteer firefighters and we used to have over a hundred and we know that we haven't uh included any new firefighters in the budget for four years now. So, I'm of the mindset that if we take this need and we spread it out and say do two firefighters per year for four years, we will absorb all of the, you know, the medical and all the other, you know, equipment that they need. We will and their salaries, we will absorb it into the budget, thus making it affordable. Because to me, public safety
048matters the most. If we're if we're not safe >> Yeah. No, I >> you know what I mean? It's like it affects us all. It doesn't matter if we're young, we're middle-aged, we're old. Public safety matters most. And we have a severe problem here. >> So, I'm wondering even with that, can we still utilize the money? And then, you know, can we get two in there? Can we do two and not four? >> Mary, uh, I appreciate Rich's comments and he's got the details down that, but that's actually not Rich's question. >> More his than >> That's for the board of finance. I I will answer your other question as best I can. And the answer is I'm only one member of the board of finance. There's seven of us. We have different views um
049on different topics on whether some things should go up or down. So I can't answer you unfortunately as to what might happen if the budget were to go down and what kind of cuts the board might be looking at. Um we make compromises, believe it or not. I mean so uh unfortunately I can't give you a hard number range at this time. So, so in the past, um, you were on the board of finance when a budget was defeated. Um, do you recall like is there a um a general uh thought process that board of finance members have when there's when they say, "Okay, the the um citizens have voted it down. We've got to lower this proposal." I'll give you my own I will give you my own personal view. >> Okay. And I
050recognize that we had at least one gentleman get up and suggest that we should move the budget up. But on the assumption that if the residents voted this down, they're asking for a lower tax increase. My personal view has always been that if a budget gets turned down and has to be um voted on a second time that unless you make cuts of at least half a mill, you're you're really you're not making enough cuts. I would think in my personal opinion that it's going to entice the taxpayers to pass the budget. As you know, that's about $2.1 million. So to me, that's probably the bare minimum. >> Okay. All right. Thank you, >> Mayor. I want to hit you with one other thing just so you get my perspective. This is my public comment
051portion of it. I like the idea of what we did with Monoise and phasing in over time and building an engine company. I think eventually it would be great to have an engine company at Northeast, but it's something that needs to be phased in over time and it has to be at the right time. I mean this year specifically with board of ed is really um has a significant increase and we understand there there are problems but again the board of finance will weigh in but I just gave you my personal opinion. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Who would like to come up next? Hello. >> Hello. Uh I'm Scott Leman. I'm uh 11 Justine Drive. Um so if I understand this process, you had these um budget roundt meetings with um the people
052who decide what they need, what they have to have to maintain services and make things better. Um and they came to the board of finance and board of finance said no that you got to cut that. So if these people are coming to you and telling you we need this to maintain our services, you know, you hear this talk about maybe phasing in the firefighters. So the fire chief said, I I need four. Didn't say I need two, I need one. This is what we need. And I understand it costs money. But I tell you one thing, it's going to cost more next year and it's cost more than a year after that and the more a year after that. Everything costs more. So, I just struggle with people who are not experts. I mean,
053no disrespect to anyone on the board of finance, but the people who are not experts um in their field. They're not they're not fire chiefs. They're not um police chiefs. They're not uh superintendents of schools dictating what these people need um when they're telling you what they need. So, um I'll leave it at that. So, thanks. Thank you, sir. Who would like to go? Okay. Good evening. Brandy Mandado, South A. Uh, I'm a proud North Haven resident, a mom of two North Haven public school kids, and someone who is deeply invested in the future of our town. I want to start by naming something about this process that I've experienced. Um, every budget conversation that I've been a part of or have watched uh has begun not by asking what North Haven needs, but by
054asking how much we're willing to limit ourselves. We started from a cap instead of a vision. And that matters because when you start with a cap, you don't actually build a budget that reflects the kind of community we want to be. You start from a place of limitation rather than innovation. A strong public education system is a country's greatest asset. You want good customer service, fund public education. You want reliable health care, fund public education. You want safer communities, fund public education. You want people centered solutions to some of the biggest challenges we're facing as a nation in a moment where our future is being shaped by AI and so many unknowns, you fund public education. I want a North Haven that fully funds its schools so every child has an opportunity to pursue their
055greatest aspirations. I want a North Haven that fully supports its fire department uh so that we are safe and protected. I want a North Haven that invests in our senior center so there is adequate adequate programming and parking for everyone that wants to attend. And I want a community that people choose not to just live in, but to stay in, to raise families in, to grow old in. That kind of community doesn't happen by accident. It requires investment. It requires intention. And I want to be clear. I understand the pressure on all of us taxpayers. My parents are retired here in North Haven and living on fixed incomes. Me, my brother, my sisters, we're raising young families in town. Two of my nephews are those blue ribbon kids. I know what it means when costs
056go up and incomes do not. And that's exactly why we need to be honest about where solutions to this problem can be found. At the local level, we are too often asked to do more with less while the burden continues to fall on workingclass taxpayers. That's not sustainable. That's not fair. That is part of a bigger challenge we have to take on in Hartford. We need a tax system that is more equitable so towns like North Haven aren't forced into impossible choices between affordability and adequacy. Because this shouldn't be an eitheror. We should be able to fully fund our schools, support our public safety, and build a community that people are proud to call home without overburdening the people who can afford it the least. And that's the work ahead of us. Thank you. Thank
057you. >> Yes, sir. Thank you. Come on up. >> Good evening. Thank you. My name is Peter Cruscola. I live at 54 Fieldstone Court. I'm also a senior citizen and a fire commissioner and very proud of it. I'm proud to live in North Haven. I think it's a great, wonderful town. We have a great first selectment. He does an outstanding job. I want to start off with that. I'm not here to knock any other department or take money from any other department. Every department that's asking for money this year, I'm sure it deserves it. They would not ask for it if they didn't need it. They don't just want it, they need it. We have the best police department. You feel safe. You go down the street, you go to movies, you go out to
058eeries, you go to commercial restaurants, you go anywhere you want to go, commercial shopping, you feel safe with our police department. They're first responders. We have a fantastic board of ed. You could see by the chart what we're doing, okay? And their groundskeepers, which I'll mention later, also doing a great job. Our public works department, they work with what they have. They're first responders also. They need to get the people they want. They're out every day doing it. And of course, our fire department. We haven't had a firefighter put on in four years. The reason why it's $160,000 per firefighter, Mr. Monaco is right. That's what all the fringes in it. They're only the turnout gear is $6,000. Okay. But they save lives. If we didn't kick the can down the road for four years
059and we put on two a year, we'd have eight now and we wouldn't be in trouble. Okay, we've lost all our volunteers. Not because they don't want to work, they can't. They have other obligations. They have families. We're down to 11 from 105. Now, I'm going to have a chart here. I had one last week and I'll probably bring one back next week again. I don't have notes. I just make charts. I have nothing else to do. Okay. Do you see this chart? This chart represents all the green in this chart. All the green in this chart. That's all the streets the public works takes care of. Snow removal, trash pickup, okay? Fixing the roads, trees that come down, potholes, they do all that. What do they have? They have a limited eight hour day,
060five days a week off on holidays. Our police, they cover the whole town other than the highways. Everything in blue is a state road. They cover everything. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, no holidays. Everything in red that you see is private pickups, private trash, private snow removal, private dirt, and everything you see in blue. All the highway mileage and all the train tracks, that's all done by the railroad pickup. And all the blue is done by the state of Connecticut public works. Now, state of Connecticut public works, they just work 5 days a week, also off on holidays. Now, our firefighters, they work with a staff of 10 to 11 maximum, four pieces of apparatus only. They cover all the green, they cover all the red, they cover all the blue, and
061they cover all the white. So they do the entire town, highways, roads, everywhere, waterways, Quinnipiac River, railroad yards, 18 gas stations. That's what we do to fire department with a limited staff. We are not safe. We are not safe. Do you understand that? We cannot maintain that pace. Our firefighters are burnt out. And though they make it cost $160,000 a year per firefighter, just so you know, we're the lowest paid fire department in the area. They could walk over the line and go to Hampton and make $9500 a year more to start in their pocket, not in their benefits. So before I finish, if everyone in this room agrees that we need four firefighters, please do me a favor. stand up and say yes when I'm all done. 30 well let's say 20 years ago
062a very wise man with not just a political background but a business background very savvy and educated his name is Michael Frereda he sat on the finance board >> 30 seconds Mr. Priscola. >> Yes. >> Sorry. >> You have 30 seconds. >> He sat on the finance board and everyone said we couldn't get a rescue truck. We didn't need it. Mike Freda took the bull by the horns and he had a recess and came back and we had the money for that rescue truck. So, let's do it again, guys. Listen to Mike. Stand up if you think I'm right and say yes for firefighters. That's what I want to hear. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Good evening. I'm Nancy Bianke. I live at 36 Hartley Street. I spoke at an earlier meeting. Um,
063and I first want to thank the decision makers who decided that it was important and necessary to maintain our creative learning programs, our world language programs, and our athletic programs at the middle and high school level. So, thank you to those decision makers. As a 30-year resident of North Haven, I'm proud to live in this town. I'm proud of the services that our decision makers have provided year after year, but I am most proud of our teachers and our students. As Superintendent Sturk showed us this evening, we have achieved a lot with being 20th in funding for our DUI. Our students are achieving great things and I'm proud of our educators for coming together to find a way to get a budget approved. However, the budget that is presented tonight is not enough for the
064needs of our teachers, our students, and our families. Those five special education those five additional special education positions are absolutely necessary are absolutely essential to the education of our students. Students who receive special education services are entitled to those services from the age of three to the age of 22. An additional transition teacher is someone who would work with our students post high school until the age of 22 to help them to be independent and successful adults who would likely remain in the town of North Haven working in our town and being members of this community. So to cut a transition educator uh would be a mistake. Obviously the position is needed and special education students should not be short short changed in this process. The eight certified and four non-certified education positions are absolutely
065important and necessary as well. So, I would ask members of this town to consider the budget that has been presented by the board of education and respectfully decline approving this budget at the referendum in May. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Christy K Christy Kho Ball Road. I normally stand up here and talk just like from my heart and I'm a mom and my kids in the schools and and just year after year I'm getting more frustrated. So while I'm proud to be a resident of North Haven that's becoming increasingly more difficult. Um I have listened to Mary White and Peter Crriscolo now talk about firefighters for the last five six years like at nauseium and the fact that we are in this position where we need four right to function and and we
066can't hire all four at the same time because it costs money. Why were we not like seeing this and hiring one a year over the last four years? I I don't understand why we keep settling for just getting by. It doesn't make sense. And now Mr. Sturk just presented something where f I don't know if any of you realize how much money it costs to outplace a student who has special education needs. That is not a choice by a teacher, by a parent. That is a law that we have to follow in a school system that Mr. Sturk is responsible for as a superintendent of schools. He has no choice. Now, he has wanted to hire these five specialized educators to save the district money. Yet, we are handcuffed again by the board of finance.
067And now, we will not be putting those positions in the budget. So, what's going to happen next year when the amount of special education students in our beautiful community increases? What's going to happen the year after that and the year after that? Do you see the problem here? And then let's talk about the capital because I also saw in Mr. Sturk's presentation that he has zero for capital projects yet the list of highly needed capital projects is two slides long. I literally cannot make this make sense from a money mathematical standpoint in living and functioning as a human in my own household. This is irresponsible. >> It is. It is financially irresponsible. We are digging our wonderful town and community into a hole that I'm not sure we're going to be able to get ourselves
068out of. And it's just continues to happen. So, somebody please on the board of finance, board of selectmen, please recognize what it sounds like the town residents want, which are definitely firefighters. Okay? You can't do four this year. Maybe we do two this year, right? And we do two next year until we get right. We have less than $2,000 in the education budget. Is that what I just heard from Mr. Sturk? After medical and salaries. You're kidding me. You have to look at this from a bigger uh vision because if we keep doing this, the town of North Haven is certainly not going to be the town of North Haven that many people who have been here for years and years and years have wanted and I certainly don't want after being here for 18
069years. I left West Haven for a reason. Okay. And so I guess what I'm asking, I want to say no on this budget, but I'm afraid that because I've lived here long enough to know, if we vote no, you're going to cut more. So how and when are you going to listen to the variety of people's voices who want more? Thank you. Hello. Hi everybody. David Cohen, uh 55 tokenique. Pete, that was a spirited visual presentation. I have no visuals tonight. I'm very sorry to everyone. Uh but what I do have is a hope. Do not vote this budget down. All right? Please do not do that. I think with a few small changes, this budget can pass. And I'm going to suggest a few changes. Okay? Uh they're very simple. Mary, I thought you
070had a great idea. I think two for two. uh we get two firefighters this year and we reduce the number of cruisers by two. It's not an even steven split, but what it does is it begins to build back our fire department. I really like the idea and I think it's a good one and I think we should go forward with it. Now the difference it's not apples to apples so people understand because what we're doing is we're pulling from capital and putting into the operating budget which means that every year we will have the cost of those two additional firefighters where the capital is a one-time expense right so that's important to understand so going forward that expense will be in there every single year but I like the idea Mary and a lot
071of other people have the same idea so I think the two for two is a nice idea if you ask the police chief, he will tell you he needs those cruisers. So, this is not an easy thing for the police chief either. Okay? But I think the chiefs, both the chiefs in this town understand that compromise is necessary. In fact, it's mandatory for our town to survive and thrive. That's the first idea. It's not really mine, it's Mary's. Thank you, Mary. The second idea, and I think this budget is actually pretty close, and I think what we need to do on the BOE side is very simple. I think if we restore about $400,000 on the BOE side, which brings us up to about 7%. And where's uh Ron and Pat? If you guys could
072check my numbers to make sure I'm right on this, but if you restore the BOE budget up to about 7%, that's about $400,000 from 6.35, what you get are some very important things back in the budget. Number one, uh we have asked uh some early retirement of some teachers to save some uh some on the on some of the cost side. We've asked for early retirement and some of those teachers have have uh accepted those offers of early retirement and that's been saving us that saves us a good chunk of money, but obviously those positions need to be filled. And so with the 400,000, you can backfill some of those early retirement positions. And I think you get about five new teachers, which I believe are about half as much as the retirees who are
073leaving. All right. So that's five new teachers. And then my numbers right? Yes, that's five new teachers. And then on the um special ed side, that $400,000 gives us the ability to bring those special ed folks back into play. Right? So you get five new teachers to backfill some of the retirees. Plus you get the five spe the four special ed teachers that we need which by the way it is very clear that they save us an enormous sum of money every single year. Those special ed teachers that we bring more in so we can educate our kids inhouse and we don't have to send them out. We have an enormous savings. So by my calculations that's $400,000. It brings us to 7%. The mill rate increase is I don't actually have the number, but
074I think it's negligible. When you add $400,000 to this budget here, I think it's a negligible increase. We should certainly look at the numbers. And then the two for two idea, it's not a perfect split, but it's pretty close. So, I think with these two changes, this budget can pass. And I think it gets us very, very close to a very good budget. Now, listen, a budget requires compromise. and to be pragmatic and constructive. These are the ideas that I have to get us home. And I I think that I think that has the town support. I think you put those two things in. You restore 400,000. You get those teachers back. You do a two for two split. The And then I think you have a budget that's very very passable. And I think
075folks should not go out and vote this down. You vote this thing down and you risk deeper cuts. I think with these two additions, you restoration of this 400k and a two for two, we have a very passable budget. Please do not go out and vote this down because you don't like it. Keep working to make changes on this budget. We can do this. We just have to work together to make it happen. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um, you refer. Okay. Go ahead. We're here all night. So you guys line up. >> Hi, Heather Talisano, Frost Drive. First, I just want to apologize for my outburst. That is unlike me about the transparency comment. >> Everybody's allowed to >> for my outburst. I do want to say that I did watch all of
076the budget meetings that I didn't attend. There were several workshops, I think, going back to January and I had conversations with Mr. Freda and Mr. Cohen, and it's still not entirely clear on some of the lines. I was looking at it tonight as well. Um, so it's still not entirely clear specifically some of the cuts on the town side, but I did get some some I did see some negatives there that of things that were removed. So, thank you. And Mr. Monaco, I think, answered some of those questions as well. Um, I'm going to put my prop down for a second. Come to my notes. I would just like to say first that I'm terrified to vote no on the budget. um because I don't want more cuts, but I don't really want to vote
077yes the way that it is right now because I don't like the way that it is right now. I was really having a hard time coming up with what even to say right now because I just have so many thoughts. So, I'm probably not even going to get them all out. This is a great town. I love this town. It's why I'm so passionate about this town. But I don't understand how you think we're going to continue to be a great town. how we're going to continue to see the awesome return on investment slides that were shown, you know, and how great our outcomes are with our students and how great our outcomes are in other areas. If we are choosing to underfund you, you guys are choosing to underfund. Let's just be clear, the
078needs are visible and apparent and I think the data supports what the needs are, but not fully funding all of the needs and going down from the 11, whatever it was, to six, whatever the numbers are, that's choosing to underfund. So, I just want to be clear on that. Education and public safety, I'm appalled by that. We've seen taxes go down. We've seen them stay the same and then go back up. and we're now essentially where we were in 2017 around there. So my question is what are we prioritizing? And I think every everyone else has pretty much said the same things. I want our schools and I want firefighters. I don't want one side of the town not covered and the other side of the town is covered. That's that's not right. Our schools
079are already doing more with less, spending below average per pupil while still achieving strong results. That's not inefficiency. That's a system being stretched. And if we continue down this road, we're just setting the board event up for failure. And I don't want my kids or your kids to fail. The other speaker said it as well, but I have to ask, are the true costs being accounted for? When you cut special ed positions, those services don't disappear. They have to be outsourced at a significantly higher cost. Is that reflected in these numbers? The budget for next year, does that account for the costs? No. So, am I wrong then by if we don't get these five special ed teachers that are currently not in the budget, we're going to have to pay to outsource some of
080these services. Is that correct? And that 150,000ish or whatever the number is per student. How does that impact the budget then? Because what we're seeing really is not a true budget. If I was gonna I can't even think of an analogy, but that's not a true number then. Okay. So, again, my crystal ball or my magic eightball, I guess, isn't working right now because I don't understand how we can vote on something when we already know that we're providing more with less. And also, I really don't like how a lot of this pits parents against seniors or the board of ed against firefighters or public safety. We're all one town and one community and we need to start acting like it. Thank you. >> Come on down. >> It's okay. That this is what it's
081all about. You don't have to apologize. >> Um but I just need your name, please. >> I'm Lisa Leman. Uh Justine Drive. Um my husband spoke earlier. I prepared nothing. Sorry. Um but I did just want to say a few things because I felt strongly about them. I've lived in North Haven now. I can be really loud, but I didn't want to do that after Peter. Anyway, um I've lived in this town uh since 1999. Uh my husband grew up in this town. We raised both our daughters in this town. They are both in college and are going to be tremendously even more successful in their future because of the education system in North Haven. I don't want to see that dismantled. I believe that a strong education system has ripple effects beyond the classroom
082walls. We all know that. And we know that by underfunding our education system, by cutting teachers and cutting things that are desperately needed for the people we say are so important for our future, that that is not going to just sit and go away. It's not going to be someone who's impacted who has kids in the school system. it will flow through our community like a virus. Anybody familiar with one of those? Right. So, the first thing I have to tell you is that I do finance for a living. At the top of every budget is revenue and there's a reason it's up there because it's the most important thing. And I will argue, as was heard by a previous speaker tonight, that the lack of foresight and investment in our town over years and
083years of trying to keep taxes low means that we didn't invest in our town enough. And we have now gotten to the end of the road where that can got kicked. And we are not going to be able to turn back the hands of time and recover. We've gotten to the cliff and now it's do or die. So, make your choice. You can choose short-term relief and long-term pain because I guarantee you that although our students will certainly be the first to feel the pain of this budget, you, me, the senior citizens, and everyone in this town will feel that pain. You'll feel it when there are families moving out and when there are not new families moving in. You will feel it when businesses start to move to other towns and that will become
084a cycle where there's even less revenue coming in and then the tax problem continues. So you can have your low taxes and then spite yourself in the future. Or you can look at this as a holistic problem for our whole town. Not fire against budget, not fire against education, against police, against sanitation, against bulk pickup. Look at it as a whole situation and look at it. If you want to stay in this town and you want your property values to be worth anything in the future, you have to invest in this town. And if you don't do that at the basic level of education, you won't be doing it anywhere. I want my family when they decide to come back to stay here. But I guarantee you that if I had to make that choice,
085looking at this town now, where I was going to raise my family, I don't know that North Haven would have been at the top of my list. Because if we're going to continue to cut the things that make our town awesome, it's not going to make people want to be here, including me. Thank you. Excuse me, ma'am. Ma'am. Ma'am, for someone who wasn't prepared, that was really awesome. Good for you. You're next, ma'am. Thank you. Melissa Diamo, 60 Potter Road. Uh, I was at a board of finance meeting a couple weeks ago when we got moved to the high school because there was so many people that they couldn't fit in the library area. And one of the women on the board of finance said, "We want to not you." Uh, no, not you. Um,
086I don't Diana or something. I don't know. Uh, she said, "We need to hear from the people. That's what's going to make this thing come together. We need to hear from the people." Well, guess what? I've now been at like four different meetings and the people are saying the same thing. Okay? We're saying we need firefighters. We're saying we need education. We're saying we need special ed. Okay, my kid is special ed. We need special ed. I need people that are going to help him succeed, right? We need firefighters to keep us safe. So, when are you going to listen to the people? Just wondering. Okay, we're all here. I keep seeing the same people in the same crowd. Okay, so we're here. We're saying what we want. You need to fix it. And I
087just did the calculation on my assessment. And if this budget goes through as is, it's $35 a month. I'll just not go out to eat on a Friday night. And guess what? I just made up my money. Okay? So that means that I could go not go out to eat two Fridays and you could double the mill rate. Okay? That's all I'm going to say. >> Thank you, ma'am. Jenny, >> Stacy, do you mind if I just uh interject for a second, please? >> Absolutely. One moment, Jenny, please. >> Uh, just I just need one second. Just please. >> Can you hear? >> Is it working? >> So, I just want to mention um I've heard a couple of comments that we haven't invested in the town and people obviously are identifying needs that they
088feel we need here in the town. I I just want to point out that if you go back to 2024, the town's budget was $121,500,000. This budget will be 145 million. I think it's 400,000 $400,000. So, it's about a $24 million increase. It's about 16% over over the period. So, I'm happy to hear people's comments and we can disagree and or agree, by the way, on where the investment should be made. But I do want to point out we are definitely investing in this town. Um I hear what people are saying. I hear what they're saying about the board of ed. I'm hearing about the fire. But I I just want to dispel the notion that we're not investing in the town. Please go ahead. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead, Jenny. Thank you. >>
089Um Jenny Cowwell, uh 69 Kimberly Circle. Um and I'm just going to read what I wrote. uh the budget development process. >> Jenny should >> Jenny just tip the um mic down just a smidge. There you go. >> Is it gonna fall over? That's what I'm worried about. >> Oh, don't worry. I'll fix it for short people. Okay. >> Um the bud budget development process should be an intentional reflection of the values and priorities for public service and for the community. As I've reviewed the bud the proposed budget, I've kept this in mind. It has been said that North Haven has great services and this is why um taxes need to increase each year. Residents really love these services. I want to make it clear as a resident of North Haven having the ability to
090dump without any cost based on usage. Um bulk pickup without any cost based on usage or having leaves picked up curbside are not services that I value or support. I would like to see the board of finance explore options that other um towns currently incorporate dumping um based on the cost of of the weight of what you're dumping. Bulk pickup fees based on use and weight. Having leaves may be bagged and put on the street uh or paying for leaf pickup service. This could help reduce the tax burden on residents and have people pay for the services they use. If paying taxes should result in receiving the services, here are the services I want but currently don't have access to. A guarantee that when I call 911 due to an emergency, there will be a
091response within an appropriate time frame. As a resident of North Haven, my number one priority is to ensure that we have adequate funded public safety. The fire chief has been asking for additional firefighters for the past four years. Even with data showing declining volunteers overlapping calls and delays in call times, volunteer firehouses that are closed during the work day, the decision has been made to leave out additional personnel for the fire department year after year. For me, this service should be non-negotiable. I would like to see a library that has adequate funding so that our hours can be extended during the evening as well on as well on the weekends. Our surrounding towns have hours that will allow working individuals to still access the library. This is a challenge in North Haven based on the
092limited budget the library is awarded each year. Um, I would like to see a senior center that has enough staff to adequately provide services to the seniors, not only those who are retired, but also those who continue to work, but would like to connect with other seniors in town. I would like to see more cultural arts programs in towns. We currently have the summer concert concerts, but there are many people in town who would like to be able to enjoy performing arts programs, visual arts programs. This can only be done if we create a budget that recognizes the needs of the community that has varying interests. Um, and then finally, I would like to um I finally I'm not able to support the current proposed budget even with a significant tax increase. The services that
093I value are not included. It is not just the tax increase but also where the money is being spent. As we have been told in the past, this budget is bare bones and only helps us maintain services. If this is a CA, if this is the case this year, as it has been said in the past, budgetary in increases will continue and many people in town will not be able to afford to stay. So, I'm hoping that the board of finance, and I've mentioned this on uh many occasions, that we can be a little bit more um creative with financing as opposed to sort of following the same format as year after year um and look at how we can change the way we fund some of these services as opposed to just increasing taxes
094and cutting from from the increases that the budgets the different departments are requesting. Thank you. Thank you. >> Hello. Evening. So, I'm Jerry Fineberg, 34 Rocket Farm Road. Um, I've been listening to what's been said this evening. Can you hear me? >> Okay. So, I've been listening to what's been said this evening and a few things stand out. Um, Mr. Freda indicated that with the mill rate increase of about 1.6 mills, he's not sure if that increase would fly uh in terms of the budget referendum. And I've also heard of folks asking for more money on both the town side and the board of education side. So, h how do we how do we square this? I got a proposal that I think might offer a solution. Now, I'm a former member of both the
095board of education and the board of finance. I served a while ago with both Mr. Freda and Mr. Dohini on the board of fi board of finance. The town has what some folks call a rainy day fund or a savings account. Um, technically it's called the unappropriated surplus. Here's the way this works. The town operates on a fis fiscal year basis. You heard that before. Runs from July 1st to June 30th. Now, in a year that where the town takes in more money than it spends, so there's money left over. Where does it go? It goes into um a it's not it's not unappropriated surplus. I misspoke. It's it's uh un unappropriated fund balance. Um, so if there's money left over goes into the fund balance and a part of that gets marked as unappropriated.
096I asked Mr. Freda at the board of selection meeting on Thursday how much money is sitting in our rainy day fund. It's currently about $12 million. Now, how do we get there? You can look on the town's website, go to the board of finances web page and look for comprehensive annual financial report. The most recent one that's there is for the period that ended June 30th of 2024. And at that time, the unappropriated fund balance was just a little bit less than $10 million. So we've gone from 10 million to 12 million during that period of time. We got hit with the tax increase due to revaluation which the administration chose not to phase in. And we also got hit with a substantial increase last year. So our unappropriated surplus has gone up about 20%
097to a million bucks in the last couple of years at the same time that we've had these significant increases. So, I think it's time that we take some of the money out of the rating day fund and apply it toward the current year's budget. We've done that in the past. Um, I think two years ago was a half a million dollars. The year before that it was a little over a million. This is not something that's unusual. Think about it. Let's say we took $3 million out of that unappropriated fund balance, reduce it from 12 to $9 million. What do we need that $9 million for? Stuff happens. We've been hit with tornadoes twice uh in recent in recent memory and it costs money to clean it up. There are bond rating agencies that um
098informed the town that there's a certain percentage of our expenditures that they expect the fund balance to equal. Mr. Freed had indicated it's about 15%. Currently, it's a it's a little bit over eight. Just think of what would it take for us to get to that 15% figure. We'd almost have to double what the surplus uh what the unappropriated fund balances right now, which would be equal to about three or four mills. That's unreasonable, folks. We pay our bills. I don't know if there's anybody here or in town who can remember the last time that the town of North Haven went into default. From my perspective, as far as these bond rating agencies are concerned, if there's no possibility that we're gonna uh miss a payment and we've got enough money to take care of
099the typical things that could go wrong, >> 30 seconds. >> We can take money out out of the surplus. Uh so out of the fund balance, is my time up? >> You have 30 seconds. >> Okay. So let let me wrap it up. Um if if we take let's say 3 mil out we can cut the tax increase to I think less than a mill. The magic number according to Mr. Dohini if the budget goes down would be about a half mil cut. Let's not go through referendum after referendum. We had five referenda at one point in the early 50s. Let's do the responsible thing. Let's make this budget salailable. put the money in that people are asking for, use the money from the s um from the uh unappropriated fund balance and hopefully get
100the budget passed. It's not a magic bullet. We're still going to have to pay the bills, >> but it's a it's a way around. Thank you. >> Thank you, >> Stacy. Stacy. >> Yes. >> Give me one second. >> One moment. You can come on up, but we're just going to have him. >> I just wanted to clarify some numbers right now. The town's unappropriated fund balance is about 10.8 million, not 12, which represents about 8.45% of our budget, which basically means we have enough extra cash to pay a month's worth of bills. Um, I just and if we did use surplus, when we do go to rating calls or we auditors do look at our books, they're basically telling us we're budging for a deficit. Thank you. >> Thank you, ma'am. Come on up.
101I'm going to take this off because I won't talk into it unless I do. Christa Kaplan, 14 Governor's Drive. Uh good evening. Uh I'm speaking tonight as a resident, a parent, and as president of the North Haven Education Association, representing educators who serve the students of this community each day. I want to begin by acknowledging the reality that many our commun in our community are facing. We understand that increases to the mill rate place a real burden on families and we do not take that lightly. We are members of this community as well. We feel those same pressures and we respect the challenges that come with them. However, I need to be equally clear about the reality of this budget. While the 6.35% increase allocated by the board of finance may sound significant under diff
102different circumstances, it very well might be. But in this case, as presented here this evening, it is not an expansion of programming or opportunity. This increase largely covers contractual obligations and the dramatic rise in medical and dental insurance costs. It is quite simply the cost of barely maintaining the system we have, not improving it. And even with that increase, this budget still results in reductions, eight certified positions, four non-certified positions, along with cuts to supplies, programs, and resources. This is not a budget that strengthens our schools. It is one that forces the district to do more with less. It means shifting staff across levels. It means fewer supports for students and it means placing an even greater burden on the educators who show up every day to meet the needs of our children. Our teachers
103are strong. They are dedicated and they will persevere as they always have. But perseverance should not be the expectation in place of proper support. Just because we can make it work does not mean that it's right for our students or sustainable for our schools. I also want to be very direct about what comes next. If this budget does not pass at referendum, further reductions are not hypothetical. They are certain. Those reductions will mean additional staff cuts, fewer programs, and diminished extracurricular and athletic opportunities for our students. The impact will be real, and it will be felt across every school in this district. Let me be very clear. We are not satisfied with the level of funding allocated by the board of finance and we believe there was a missed opportunity to allow voters a greater
104voice in determining the level of funding through the referendum process. But we but we must also be realistic about where we are today. This budget cannot withstand further reductions without causing significant harm to the quality of education this town provides both now and in the future. That is why we are asking for your support. We need this community to come together to show up to stay informed and to speak up. The board of finance openly admitted they cannot recall a time they've increased funding following this meeting. Well, we forced a few first force this first few firsts this year already. Let's push the envelope a little bit further. Flood the board and Mr. Frereda with emails. Flood the phone lines. Request to see an adequate increase for our schools and for our town's first responders.
105Our students deserve stability. Our firefighters and our officers deserve stability. They deserve opportunity and they deserve a community that stands behind them. At the end of the day, this is about the kind of town we choose to be. And as Mr. Freda mentioned, today we have a town meeting form of government. Our system is based on us, the people, and the authority of the board of finance is not absolute. They are not supposed to be the final decision makers. We are. The board is designed to recommend, not decide unilaterally. I lost my place. Um, at the end of the day, I know I said that this is about us and it's about whether we are willing to invest in the students sitting in our classrooms and the men and women who run into danger on
106our behalf and about our future of our community. Thank you. >> Thank you. Hello, >> Brian Test of Maple Avenue. Um, I have no comments. I just have questions. So, I'm going to turn my this way so I don't have my back to you guys. On the town side, uh, at the last board of finance meeting, Mr. Halahan said, uh, the Amazon tax deal had expired. They're now paying a full 100% of the taxes. The grand list grew from the last portion about 11 million. That doesn't mean we got $11 million in tax revenue. Just the grand list grew $11 million. Is that correct? >> Or is it They grew, but it was $11 million figure. And some people were saying, "Wow, we got $1 million to play with." And that's that's not right. >>
107It grew by 1.6 6 mill >> 1.6 million okay initially initially it was over three after appeals it came down to 1.6 6 million. >> But the but the Amazon but Amazon itself >> that's that's all part of it. It's everything. >> So we Okay. So >> it's it's vehicles, it's personal property, it's >> right. Okay. >> Commercial res. >> Now they're paying 100% there. The seven-year deal has expired. >> In reality, the largest part of Amazon's um tax payment is on personal property, which wasn't part of phase in. >> Um second question on the town side, the pension funds, they're all fully funded. We fund whatever the arc is. Okay. Most of them, right? Yeah. Most of them are in the as a percentage, they're in the upper 80s, but whatever the actuaries tell
108us to fund, that's what we fund. >> Okay. Third question is, um, you were talking about the fire department contract coming up at the end of this year. Is that in this budget or is that going to be in next year's budget? The >> the fire department contract you said? >> Yes. >> That doesn't expire till next year. >> Okay. So it's not >> so it'll it technically we should start negotiation a year from this December. >> But Brian, just one minute. We always include within the budget an estimate of the increase for any contract that has yet to >> that's the contract that's being negotiated now. Actually I'm starting it Thursday is uh public works. >> That was my my point. >> Yeah, public works is the only one that's due right now. The
109f next year is fire. And the last question, and it's more of a board of ed thing, but it was on the town side. What is the bonding for this board of ed athletic bonding at 13.5 million? It's on page 48. >> It was kind of hard to hear your question. Can you repeat that, >> Brian? Um, page 48 plan. >> Page 48. It's a five-year capital plan. Is that what we're talking about? Yeah, it says board of ed athletic bonding for 13.5 million. Did I read that right? >> Um, yeah. On page 49 >> or 49. Okay. >> Yeah. The the board of finance, just like the town, every department gives a five-year plan, the board of ed gives a five-year plan. >> Okay. So, that 13.5 million is going to go to some
110of my board of ed questions. That's including the 1.2 2 million every year for the middle school roofs. That's part of the five-year plan. >> I'm not a page. >> I don't see the 13. >> I see the roofs on there, tell you the truth. >> I saw that somewhere that you're >> It says replace the roof Clintonville here, Rich. >> Oh, yeah. >> Million two. >> It's in 2728, >> right? And every year 27 28 28 29 2930. So that's part of that 13.5 the 5-year projection. I'm not I'm not sure where you're seeing 13. I see 11. >> Okay. I might have I might have written it down wrong. >> Um >> I just saw this bonding thing and it's like why are we bonding now? >> Um none of this is for
111bonding. This is just a lot of what's put on just so everyone knows a lot of what's put on the five-year plan and we basically give all departments including board of ed a wide range. put whatever your heart can possibly desire because a lot of time grants may become available and one of the conditions is that it's on our five-year plan. So, we try and cover as many bases as we can. So, if a grant should pop up, we have something we can point to and say, "Yeah, here it is. We have it. Give us the money." >> All right. Now, I got hopefully I have time board of ed questions and I'll try to do them quick. Why is there a difference or what is a difference on the town side when there's unused
112money it's called a surplus but on the board of ed side it's called unappropriated funds or unspent funds and where does it go >> maybe I can answer no bas basically what what we did years ago was we told the board of ed if you have a surplus don't spend it for the sake of spending it they called it different things at the time right now is called the non-lapsing fund and the money was basically put in that fund so they can use it for f future capital request. Um I mean there were some comments made and maybe I'm talking a little off side but there were some comments made about the board of ed surpluses. You know they had a $200,000 they had a $300,000 surplus. Well in a $70 million budget or a
113696 $67 million budget two or $300,000 isn't anything. So for the sake of just not wasting money, put it aside. We'll put it in a non-lapsing account and we'll make things work. Um >> so that that fund there is a line with those funds being >> there is a there is a place those funds go unfortunately. Um last year year before they had some extensive uh expenses which basically wiped a lot of those funds out. But it's always been the town's position, and I'm kind of speaking for Michael a little bit. Um, we wanted to set up a reserve account for them, which they could use when they had capital expense or something unforeseen came up. The board of, uh, Ed has control over it. The board of finance has made aware of it. Uh,
114we work well together. Um, unfortunately, it was it was kind of took a hit a year or so ago. Um, but the fact that they have these two, three, even $400,000 surpluses on the size budget is really not a big dollar item, and it's good to let it build up over time. >> All right. >> It's actually by state statute now, too. >> Oh, that's >> Yes, that the legislation's changed a little bit over time. So, actually by state statute, they have the right to roll it over into the non-lapsing fun. Okay, but in reality, we started it before the state statute. That's all my that I don't know if it was >> we started before state >> state mandated uh >> sooner or later the state usually catch up with Mike Freda and they
115kind of make things fall in line >> for uh our superintendent um how many out of district students come to North Haven and we service and then the second part of that question is are we getting paid for those students from other towns coming to school here because I saw that we're suing New Haven for 500,000 and I know that's going through its court system. So, but are how many students, how many different districts are using our our school system and are we getting paid for it? >> So, it's the city of New Haven through the open choice program. I'd have to get you the exact number. Um, but we do get paid for them. We do not get paid for services provided beyond whether they're special ed services and things like that. That's That's
116where we're not seeing payment from the city of New Haven. >> Okay. Then >> yes, you want to >> we >> Sorry. >> We have students from the open choice program which is uh part of the New Haven public schools. Uh I do not do not know the exact number of students that currently um come from the city of New Haven. However, we do uh receive payment for each of those students. However, we do not receive payment for services that we provide uh through special education. So, that's part of the uh >> So, New Haven is the only town right now we're accepting out of district students for >> Yes, sir. Okay. Something caught me at the March Board of Ed meeting about the 13th minute about field trips. There was a comment about a
117field trip going to Greece. Is that a question? >> Yeah. Uh, that seems a little the optics that were fighting two pennies for then we have somebody discussing about a field trip. >> Thank you for Thank you for that question, Brad. I want to just respond to that. Any field trip that's brought up, we we live listen with an open ear to our teachers who are always looking with great vision to provide new learning opportunities for our students, but they do have to be brought before the board of education uh for approval. Quite frankly, that happens uh through formal approval process. That was just a discussion that is not in our operating budget at this time. That that has not been approved at this time. >> 30 seconds, Mr. Ta. >> All right. I'll do
118these last two real quick. Uh why are there three high school assistant principles and two middle school principles at the cost of approximately $766,000 a year? And I didn't know North Haven Education had a chief operating officer at $171,000 a year. What does he do or she do and why? >> We we'll dance with this one a little bit only because Patrick will take the chief operating one and I'll speak to the administr that comfortable for everyone. >> I didn't know one more question. Is it mandated for these assistant principles? >> So currently we have two high school assistant principles. uh not three, we did reduce after the budget last year. Um and we do have two um at the middle school. They are absolutely viable for making sure the day-to-day operation happens. Everything from
119planning, scheduling, student discipline, teacher support. Um we are commensurate currently with districts of our size with administrators, but I can tell you those uh each one of those individuals is vital to the day-to-day operations of our building. Mr. Ta, this is the chief operating officer. That's why he's not answering the question. >> Don't take it insulting. I wasn't I'm not picking on you. I just never I've been in business a long time and I didn't know an education department had a CEO. So >> So prior to the creation of that role, there was a director of everything, transportation, finance, personnel, uh facilities. And when that person departed, uh, we revamped to have a finance manager and a chief operating officer which handles all those, uh, items that I just mentioned before. >> Okay. Thank you.
120>> So, similar to the town setup of of Mr. Monaco and uh, Mr. who's sitting over there as well. >> That's basically the explanation I was looking for. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. Who would like to speak? Okay. Good evening. Hi, >> Suben Venui. I don't think this is >> Let me come down there and adjust it. You got it. >> Okay. >> You got it. Okay. >> Subvinoodi Basset Road. Wasn't going to speak today, but you all brought me up here. Okay. You went through no tax increases for three years. Well, we still managed to run our schools and our town. And then we went through two years of large tax increases and we still managed to run the town. And then we went through this great extreme increase last year with
121the overrated assessments and here we are again. I don't understand why we keep doing this. I don't understand why if you can keep things at one level then all of a sudden things are like jumping. you know, the schools have managed to improve with the rating, I believe it said in the math at four and the rating in the reading at five. I I mean, I don't know what you're what we're looking for. Okay. I understand whatever this district thing is that you talk about that you went down from 15 to down to 20. But if you're still teaching your kids six years worth at least, I've been graduating from here and getting great educations and now all of a sudden we have issues. Okay, first of all, I'm going to let you know two
122couple things. I am in favor of those five special ed positions. I am in favor of the four fire department hirees, which I believe we are well overdue in. I don't understand why our schools are not getting the funding from the state that they deserve. I have seen constantly that we're under granted. I don't know what the what the money is coming from, but instead of the 15% we're supposed to be getting, we're getting eight. Well, hello. Where are our state representatives? We have two. Are they standing up for us? No. Why are we not going for that state money we belong to have? It should be here. I don't understand this. You know, I I have no problem. I will pay the taxes. All right. When I retired in 2018, my taxes was $5,200
123a year. Well, guess what? I took a cut and pay. And last year, my taxes were just over $9,000. I live in the exact same house with the exact same number of people living there. Hello. I don't want the concerts cut. I don't want what is here for leaf pickup cut. When I was physically able to do the leaves, I did them. And you know what? That was a plus to be able to get them up to the street and that was it. I don't want even the bulk pickup cut. We already cut that down. Remember, we used to be able to put it out every single week. Now we could put it out twice a year. And that's fine, but curb it. Make sure those people that are putting out building supplies, I mean,
124I saw Blakesley Avenue today or and there's windows and there's siding and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. But we're not penalizing these people. We have to penalize the people that are doing this. You know, I mean, if it's a service that we're going to take away, then why are we taking it away? What what is left for a senior citizen here? I'm sorry. Yeah, I get to go to the senior center. Okay. I play cards. I do exercise. I do all I can do there. But, you know, we should have more. You know, I I don't think we want to cut those concerts. And I don't think you want to cut the leaf pickup or the bulk pickup. And I really would love that special ed, those five special ed positions put back
125and the four firemen. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. >> Hi, I'm Shaina Hackett, Shamat Avenue. Um, I moved to North Haven 5 years ago for my daughter. She's six and at Ridge Road School. We moved here for the schools, but we absolutely fell in love with this community. I have an ask for Mr. Freda, all the people who are up on the stage and in the audience, please, please listen to your constituents. So many people have gotten up in front of this room tonight and told you what they want. Stop putting parents against seniors, against firefighters, against public safety. It's enough. Go back to the drawing board. Listen to what people of the town are telling you and what we want and what we value. I support public education. I support public safety. Restore the
126funding to make sure our schools and our fire department are staffed appropriately and let the people of the town of North Haven decide. >> Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Uh Sally Buy uh Five Blossom Drive. Uh I just got here. I couldn't get here earlier, so I don't really know what was said uh before, but I do know that the proposed uh budget increases the mill rate uh by 1.6 mills, which is 5.4% uh meaning your taxes are going to go up 5.4%. It's the fourth significant tax increase in a row. And I don't think uh that uh a lot of people on fixed income, senior citizens, working families, it's not seniors versus education. There's a lot of working families that cannot afford these tax increases. Back in February, Mr. Freda had predicted that
127the mill rate would go up by a third of a mill. Now a lot has happened since then and again this proposed budget I believe the exact amount is 1.59 mil increase which is five times what Mr. Freda had originally said was his target. Um I know that it's not possible to get down to that that one-third mill that Mr. Freda had talked about but I do think it's possible to get it closer to a mill and more affordable. I've been a real estate attorney here in North Haven for 43 years. I attended countless uh real estate closings. And if the closing was in North Haven, I always asked the buyer, "Why did you move to North Haven?" And the the number one answer was always taxes, taxes, taxes. We had low taxes. And uh
128you can't say that anymore. The second most popular reason was it's near New Haven and I just got a job at Yale. Um so um uh you know uh nine and $10,000 tax yearly taxes are commonplace now and for a lot of our seniors and people on fixed income that's 20% of their income. So I respectfully ask the board of finance to do their due diligence and try to get that mill rate down to a 1 mil increase. Thank you very much for your time and attention. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Good evening, everyone. My name is Nancy Barrett. I live at 1 Crest Drive. Uh I am a member of the board of finance, but I'm not here in that capacity this evening. Um, in response to a recent request, I'm going to try to
129define some terminology that I hope will provide some additional clarity, dispel some common myths, as well as refute some disinformation that's swirling around our community. Now, Mr. Freda mentioned the misuse of the term cut, as in budget cut. Now, this term refers to a reduction in funding that reduces services. Now, we certainly are seeing that in some communities here in Connecticut. Uh communities that are flat funding or reducing below the current bullet budget dollars, so the same dollar amount two years in a row. Uh in some cases, they're even reducing the amount of funding. But Mr. Freda confirmed that every year the town government operating budget and the board of ed budget are higher yearover-year and all scenarios considered for the 2627 board of ed budget included percent increases that in uh uh exceeded inflation.
130The proposed 2627 board of ed budget is $4.3 million larger than the current BOE budget. And as Mr. Sturk uh indicated uh that was achieved that can be achieved without eliminating any of the programs that many of you heard might be on the chopping block. So I I'd also like to clarify that reducing one proposed percent increase such as 9.95 to a lower percentage increase is also not a cut. That is what's referred to as a reduction to the increase. Now, I'd like to define vacancy savings. This is a term that refers to realized dollars or savings when a budgeted position is not filled. So, for example, we had some trouble actually filling our assistant town engineer position. So, that was budgeted and yet we weren't spending the dollars because we couldn't find someone. Eventually,
131we did, thankfully. Uh we're also struggling to find uh a replacement town assessor. Those are budgeted positions. Until they are filled, those represent savings. Um uh the North Haven High School uh had uh three assistant principles budgeted in the current fiscal year budget. Uh the third assistant principal resigned his position at the beginning of this fiscal year and that position was not then filled but it was still funded. So that represents $150,000 savings just as an example. I went through the board of ed meeting minutes and I calculated that there are 27 board of ed resignations or retirements thus far this year. It is unclear to me how many of those positions have been filled this year or will be filled next year. There's also this concept of retirement savings. I think this was mentioned
132earlier and that's when a position that has been vacated by a retiree is filled by a more junior employee. So for example, in March the board of ed acknowledged the retirement of the director of facilities. So, first I'd like to uh publicly thank Mr. Diana for his decades of dedicated service not only to this school system but to this town. But I'd also like to point out that it's unlikely that his replacement will have his same decades of experience. But yet the position salary for next year is budgeted at 3% higher than what it is this year. So, if a a more junior person is hired into that position, that will again represent a potential for savings. I'd also like to point out that vacancy savings can be used at the superintendent's discretion to hire
133board of ed staff and teachers. The term surplus uh has been something that has uh been speculated about. So, >> you have 30 seconds. So, I would uh encourage you all to check out the December 9th, 2021 board of ed uh meeting in which our town finance manager, Howard Wardlaw, refers to it as uh unexpended money and he also confirmed the $1 million board of ed surplus that was transferred into three reserve accounts but not spent in that year. There's also a myth that the increase in board of ed budgets will increase teacher salaries. These are dictated by the union contracts and the teachers can confirm that they certainly did not get a 7% increase this year. The takeaway from the April 2nd board of ed special meeting >> is that the board of ed
134unanimously approved this particular budget. Thank you for your time. >> Hello Lindsay sir five angel place. Um, before I get to the comments that I was going to say, I just want to refute the last speaker's comments. When a proposed budget cuts 12 current positions from staffing, that is a cut. Whether the budget increased or not, it's a cut. I've now been to four meetings to talk about this budget. The overwhelming support for the board of finance to simply listen to constituents is evident. I work in government and when just 10 constituents contact politicians, it is a sign of a larger movement and we in government positions then hear from those politicians to address the issue. The board of finance has now heard from hundreds of coni constituents that they would like to fully support
135education and public safety. I guess I'm just wondering when you are going to start listening. Increase the budget and let constituents decide. It should not be a decision that is made by just five people in this town. Thank you. >> Okay. Well, we're here all night. You You take your time. Well, you take your five minutes, but you know, >> Toby Espo, Arrowhead Road. We're all dealing with this now, but wait and see. You have four elementary schools, four new ones that they want to build soon. Sit tight and watch your dollars. Good evening everyone. Michelle Gelmo, Curtis Court. While I am on the board of ed, I am here speaking tonight as a parent and a taxpaying resident. I am here tonight to express my support for restoring funds to the current budget proposal.
136I am in support of restoring enough funds to cover the salary of the four firefighters that have been asked for significantly over the past four years and for an additional $500,000 to the board of ed budget. I would also be happy with u Mr. Cohen's compromise of the two for two and 400,000. Um I think it's a pretty fair compromise. Um I would be in support of both of these measures either by reducing from other areas to keep the current proposed mill rate as it stands at 1.59 or increasing the estimated mill rate by an additional 0.2 2 mills, which would account for, if my math is correct, the 800 approximately $850,000 needed to do what I just suggested. Just to give some context, I did some math on my own property, and I know
137that everyone's properties are different. I know that Mr. Freda had given plenty of examples earlier, but at the 1.58 or 59 mil increase, my taxes go up $371 per year, which is $31 per month. To increase this budget an additional 0.2 mill to fund the firefighters and to add the additional funding back to back to the board of ed, it would go up an additional $3.95 per month from the amount that I just listed. Um, we have heard over and over that the board of finance wants to hear from people and we have seen at numerous meetings now that people have come and have spoken over and over again. So, the the people continue to show up and are continuing to request that more funds for our schools and for our firefighters be added to
138this budget. Um, while I while I know there are only a few board of finance members here tonight, I think it's important that every person who has spoken here tonight also sends an email possibly tomorrow to the board of finance um ahead of their meeting on Wednesday because in my opinion, in the time that I've been here in North Haven, um the only way that this budget is going to get more funds added is by doing it now before Wednesday when they vote on the final number to go to our referendum. As you heard tonight, a no vote at referendum will likely result in further reductions. Um, you heard somebody ask earlier what Mr. Dhini expects that to possibly be, and I know that that's up to their board when we get to that point,
139but by that estimate, it would be a minimum of $2 million that would have to come off, and that would likely be shared between the town and the board of ed. And I know for a fact that the board of board of ed cannot endure another million dollars off of where we currently stand. It will be devastating. So, while I'm here to ask for the board of finance to restore funds on Wednesday before we go to referendum, I'm also here to ask that if for some reason that doesn't happen, that the residents do vote yes on this budget so that we don't endure further reductions, whatever you want to call them. I know that technically it's an increase, but as you heard the superintendent of schools say that it's I think $2,000 besides for what
140we need in order to cover um the contractual increases and the medical and dental insurance that is causing most of this increase. Um so yeah, that's that's what I have to say. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Would you like to speak? Are you coming to speak? Okay, great. >> Cheryl Studley, 69 Minute Man Drive. I'm a North Haven resident. I'm also North Haven Middle School World Languages. I'm not going to tell you that my three boys went through North Haven schools, all took Spanish all the way up, and already are beginning to see the importance of it in today's world. Not just for traveling, but everywhere they go. Languages are a safe space for many students to be creative and turn into superhumans who can be helpful members of their community and global citizens.
141I'm also not going to tell you that I finally found the place where I'm supposed to be and I planned for this to be my forever job. I'm also not going to tell you that I'm really good at what I do and Mr. Sturk saw that the day he chose me. uh from the letters that I was advised to request from my administrators and my department coordinator, I am valued and we all are. I'm sending well-prepared Spanish students to the high school and they have also personally contacted me to tell me so. Last week, some of them showed up at the workshop to show support. The situation is beyond feelings. It's beyond what's good for kids. I have felt so valued until this and now I just feel like a number. I have a family
142to feed and I thank Mr. Sturk and the board of ed for choosing to save the people. WOULD anyone else like to speak? Mr. Chriscolo, are you looking to speak again? Okay. Uno momento. Uno momento. Uh, anyone else? Because he's already spoken, so I have to make sure everybody else has had their first try. Going once, going twice. Okay, Mr. Cruscolo. Five more minutes. Again, Peter Crriscola, I just have a couple of things to add. First, I appreciate Mary White and my dear friend Dave Cohen about doing the the two for two or split it. I'm not in favor of that. It does not help us. Okay? It does. It's putting a band-aid on heart surgery. It does not help us. And I'm not going to go against another union body, whether it be the
143police or public works. I'm not going to ask them to give up something. Public works so we could have something. I'm not going to ask the PD to give up something. We have two officers in the back of the room. They got here in a vehicle. They did not walk so they need their vehicles. If the chief needs something, he doesn't arbitrarily just say, "I want it." He needs it for a reason. So does the superintendent of schools. So does Department of Public Works superintendent. He doesn't just ask for things. If he asks for it, he needs it. Police need it. fire chief needs it. You put two firefighters on, you can't man any piece of apparatus. We go out short now. The engine under FAPA should have a minimum of four. We go out
144with three. We should have four. So, putting two firefighters on really doesn't help. It gives us an extra set of hand on two shifts. We'll put one on one shift, one on another shift. It's not the cure all. That's number one. Number two, if we put on the four, and I know Mr. Monaco knows the numbers a lot better than I do, and so does Tim. I don't have all the percentages and everything else, but let me ask you a question. It's 160,000 per firefighter approximately >> without equipment. Just what equipment? Just the man himself. >> No, the man. The man and the equipment 160 each. >> No equipment. 165. The equipment >> is 6,000. >> It's 6,000. Turnout gear is >> 6,000 for >> turnout gear I think is more than six. >> No,
145$6,000 last year. I don't know what it is this year. >> Got turnout. >> So let's say it's 175 >> out the door. >> Well, it's 600 for four firefighters. How much did we pay in overtime last year that we have some of our firefighters working three tricks? So I know they're not getting the extra medical, but they're paying the overtime. We're paying one and a half times. So, if you take some of that money out and you put that towards hiring new firefighters, we don't need to take a reduction of two firefighters. We could go ahead with the four. Take that overtime money and put it back in to new healthy firefighters. Not killing our guys. You're wearing our guys out. I hate to say this, but we lost three firefighters under 55 years
146old in 36 months. What do you think? Not good. They're overworked. They're overstressed. People say, "Well, you don't have that many fire calls." No, you're right. We have a lot of medical calls. But at three o'clock in the morning when you're sound asleep, have somebody tap you on the shoulder and flick the lights in your bedroom and sound off an alarm. And less than less than 120 seconds, you're in the apparatus rolling off the apron and then have somebody call up on the radio and say, "Engine one, it was a mistake. False alarm. Go back. Your heart rate is still pumping. It doesn't stop pumping for another three hours. So they need their rest, too. Like I said, some are working three tricks. That's a lot of overtime financially and deprivation of rest and sleep.
147And also, we said that we've never seen a budget where it came out higher than we went in before the board of finance ruled on it. Well, we're supposed to be a town that tells the board of finance what we want. It's open government and that's not true about not coming out because like I said earlier, Mike Freda had the foresight, the business savvy knowing what to do years ago on the board of finance when he called a recess and everybody said we're not going to have the money to put a brand new rescue vehicle for the fire department. Mike Freda got it passed. >> 30 seconds. Mr. Cruscolo, >> listen. We need this. It will be a travesty if we do not put the firefighters on the four firefighters. And again, I will not
148go after any other department to take from them to give to us. I'm 100% union guy. I'm the only I'm the only commissioner in the state of Connecticut that's union endorsed locally, statewide, and by the international in Washington. So, I'm not going against any union guy. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Mrs. Benoodi. Hi. Hi. I didn't realize we could talk about adding back into the budget, but personally, I want to add back in four firefighters. I don't care if it's $800,000. I want them in. I also want the five special ed positions. And if it's 500,000, I thought that was kind of low what they were talking about, but whatever it is, put it in. Okay, so it's 1.56% 1.58. Okay, bring it up to 2%. Bring your mill up to 2 mil
149if that's what you have to do to make our town safe and to provide for our kids. All right, because a lot of our kids are very fortunate that they don't need special needs. They're very fortunate. And then there's the kids that need it. give them what they deserve. They deserve a fair chance. And our firefighters are our lifeline. And as Pete was saying, all right, my father was a volunteer fireman for 50 years. So it takes wear and tear on your body, on your family, on your mind. There's so much more into being a firefighter than just hopping onto a truck and going to a call. It's a It's a whole body. It's destroying. So, you need to get your men here. You need to provide for the guys that are already there. >>
150Thank you, Mr. Freriedman. >> Hi, Scott Freiedman, Cooper Road. Um, I wanted to add a few things. So, first and foremost, um, earlier as I was leaving, you talked about, uh, two, well, positions being cut from the town side. As I understand it, it's two positions where there's been attrition and they're not being replaced. So again, no one is being fired from the town side to pass this budget or if you pass this budget. And unless I'm mistaken, >> you are mistaken. >> I am okay. Um from which department? >> I'm I'm losing a position in in my office, the tax collector site. So yes, there are jobs being deleted. It's happening. >> Okay. I am going to come back then to the slide that's been up here the whole time is a slide that
151shows an increase and there's been talk about this uh continuing to uh you know support the services that we are giving in our schools. That is not the case at the moment. We're losing five special ed teachers that are needed to run programs that we already have and we've committed to students for. We are losing eight uh teachers being who are retiring and not being replaced. We are losing an additional what four um non certified teachers. These are teachers. These are classrooms that will not have teachers. These are um other teachers who are going to be moved around. This is not a a stasis ba budget. And I want to make a really clear point because I've been at every one of these budget meetings for the last five years. This was a foregone conclusion
152when you started raiding the medical insurance reserve fund from the teachers. I want to make it really, really, really clear. This increase is not out of nowhere. We talked about it the last two years. We had the a the actuarial required amount of funds in a medical insurance reserve fund at the board of ed and for two years in a row or maybe it's two over three years. We rated that fund in order to balance the budget. once during the budget cycle and once after the first budget failed. But what happened this past year is that parents showed up. They were maligned for months afterwards by board of finance and at the time board of selectment members, but they were maligned for showing up for a popsicle party. And do you know what I saw
153when I walked onto the green that day? I saw our community coming together to support our teachers, to support our students, and we need to continue doing that. We cannot take 12 teachers out of these schools, not replacing them or letting them go. And at this point, we need four firefighters. We need the additional firefighters so that we don't have a ton of overtime pay. I've watched this in Hampton. Part of the reason that Hampton is suffering tax-wise is because they're paying overtime to existing employees who are then working, you know, that overtime instead of hiring the new people. We need to It's not a matter of not spending money. Everything is more expensive now. There is no doubt about it. I pay more for every service I get. I pay more for my house.
154I pay more. But we need in this town to support education. Our taxes stay low in part artificially. Brandy Mandado made a great point earlier about how we need vision driving the budget, not caps. And I think somebody else said that we need more money coming in from the state. There is absolutely no doubt that our first elect has been up in Hartford talking to the state about raising the ECS cost uh amount. They are artificially lowering the amount of money they're sending to towns and they're putting us in a really bad position. But we don't have to do that. >> 30 seconds. for effectively five to seven dollars per month per per household. We can fund the four firefighters and we can fund the teachers that were cutting from these schools. And I urge
155you to vote yes if we don't see more, but ultimately to push the board of finance and and I really hope you're listening to push the board of finance, the director of finance and the first selectman to restore the budget requests so that we have good public safety and good public schools. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Would anyone else like to speak? Now is the time. This is your time. If you're here and you want to say something, come on up. Going once. Going twice. Okay. So, as a reminder, this is the end of the public hearing and our next the next meeting on the budget will be the board of finance. Then we will have the annual budget town meeting in excuse me, May along with the budget referendum. Thank you
156very much for coming out tonight participating. Good evening. The preceding program is brought to you in part through a grant from the town of North Haven. Watch town meetings or other videos on demand at nhtv.com.