Fire Co. Staffing An Issue—

Selectmen Adjust Several Departmental Budgets During Deliberations

By John Voket

After a proposal to introduce paid daytime responders for two Newtown fire companies was downsized and eventually eliminated in last year’s budget deliberations, Fire Commissioner Kevin Cragin was not about to walk away from Wednesday’s municipal budget deliberations empty-handed. And the Board of Selectmen agreed the work of a committee representing five local fire departments to craft an alternate plan would be forwarded to the Board of Finance after being revised by more than 50 percent.

This proposal was one of dozens the Board of Selectmen deliberated this week in a three-day marathon that will yield a final municipal budget request for the finance board and Legislative Council to subsequently review and possibly adjust further.

In discussing the new proposal, Mr Cragin detailed what he hoped would be the ultimate benefit to the community — a program that would not only enhance response time for the two busiest companies, but aid in recruitment and retention among the dwindling ranks of fire volunteers.

Mr Cragin was joined by the Fire Commission’s personnel committee chair Michael Burton, who said the ad-hoc committee representing all of Newtown’s fire companies determined that a two-phase initiative would be the best solution for the collective departments’ greatest challenges, improving response times and holding on to trained fire personnel.

The new plan would provide a relatively modest $10 per hour stipend to volunteers agreeing to staff both the Hook & Ladder and Sandy Hook fire companies weekdays from 7 am to 5 pm. Those compensated volunteers would respond with apparatus immediately upon the first call, much like a fully paid company, and liaison with other volunteers who would head directly to the scene, Mr Burton explained.

In addition, responding volunteers would all receive a stipend based on response to each call they answered at the rate of  $3 to $8 per call, graduating upward based on rank and length of service.

That stipend would also be extended to all volunteers attending department drills, work details, and training sessions.

“That would address the need for retention,” Mr Burton said.

Selectman William Brimmer, Jr, polled the contingent of fire personnel in attendance as to how each company was fairing with individual recruitment and retention programs. He was told that Hook & Ladder had lost several volunteers to paid fire jobs, some of which restrict employees from continuing with volunteer duties.

Sandy Hook Chief William Halstead said his department would be losing a half-dozen young recruits in September when they all head off to college. A member from the Hawleyville department said they lost five or six members in the past year while only recruiting two new volunteers.

Botsford and Dodgingtown departments, the selectmen were told, are holding their own so far.

Mr Cragin said in formulating the overall budgets, each department sacrificed requests for other equipment and program funds in order to fully support the response and retention proposal.

“I would like the Board of Finance and Legislative Council to know how important this is,” Mr Cragin said. “We really had a tough time coming up with budgets, but every department took a hit in the hopes of making this program work.”

The selectmen appeared to appreciate the fire commissioners’ concerns.

“I hear a lot of passion here,” Mr Brimmer said. “I say we leave it alone.”

In deliberations on the emergency management team that funds the Newtown Search And Rescue dive team, selectmen also passed a proposal for a new, smaller, and more efficient inflatable response craft. Representative Mike McCarthy said a new boat has been proposed and cut for about five years.

He said while the team’s existing hard shell craft would remain in service, the new boat would fill a need when his divers must negotiate smaller bodies of water, affect ice rescues, and in other situations where tight proximities would restrict use of the primary unit.

Departmental Budgets

In other deliberations that occurred Tuesday and Wednesday, the selectmen passed proposed budgets from social services, the tax collector, assessor, Probate Court, finance department, Commission on Aging, emergency communications, police, canine control, the regional Health District, and municipal contributions to numerous service agencies without cuts.

Among those agencies are VNA of Newtown, the Children’s Adventure Center, the Regional Hospice, the Danbury Regional Child Advocacy Center, Ability Beyond Disability, Amos House, the Shelter of the Cross, and funds to cover the annual insurance policy for the Newtown Labor Day Parade Committee.

A proposal from Newtown’s free adult clinic, Kevin’s Community Center, was passed fully funded at $50,000. First Selectman Herbert Rosenthal explained that in order for the clinic to receive grants and access other state and federal funds, the municipality is required to partially fund the program.

“Kevin’s Community Center has provided nearly $1 million in services to more than 500 Newtown patients in less than three years,” Mr Rosenthal said, adding that the municipal support was proposed after a meeting with State Representative Julia Wasserman, who is seeking significant capital funding for the clinic.

The selectmen also passed two separate line items fully funding Newtown Youth Services and the Family Counseling Center of Newtown, which are still represented individually in the proposed budget. Those two agencies are in the final stages of negotiating a merger that is scheduled to be completed July 1, the same day the new budget goes into effect.

Mr Rosenthal consulted with town Finance Director Benjamin Spragg, and determined that once the agencies officially merged, the two separate budgets would be combined. Youth Services chairman Chris Gardener and Beth Barton, the agency’s executive director, were on hand to tell selectmen of plans for the newly merged agency to occupy offices at Edmond Town Hall once municipal offices were transferred to a proposed new facility at Fairfield Hills.

This information came just one day after the selectmen cut the proposed budget from the Town Hall Board of Managers by $50,000. In other actions, selectmen cut $26,250 from the Registrars of Voters budget proposal that would fund referenda and political primaries in the 2007 fiscal year.

The selectmen decided to place $10,000 in a contingency fund in the event more than one budget referendum was required, and to cut $16,000 that was proposed in the event the registrars must mount three political primaries in the coming year.

Note: The final selectmen’s budget session was scheduled for Thursday evening, after The Newtown Bee went to press. The outcome of that final meeting will be reported in next week’s edition.