Board of Estimate and Taxation Begins Review of Greenwich's Proposed $408 Million Budget

The Greenwich budget season began in earnest Tuesday night when First Selectman Peter Tesei unveiled his proposed $408,684,576 budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year.

The budget proposal represents an increase of $12,996,093 or 3.28 percent over the 2014-15 budget of $395,688,483. If approved as submitted, the budget would cause a 2.89 percent increase of the current mill rate of 10.96 per $1,000 of assessed valuation.

The Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) began its monthlong review of the budget Wednesday morning, meeting with Greenwich Board of Education officials who submitted a $146,817,268 proposed budget, representing 2% increase over the current $143,939,653 budget. Board of Education Chair Barbara O’Neill said her board’s budget proposal “is a very restrained budget … with a growing student population with growing economic restraints.”

At Tuesday night’s presentation, BET Budget Committee Chair Marc Johnson said there will be eight days of line-item reviews during February culminating with a March 17 public hearing and budget vote by the 12-member BET. The BET-recommended budget is scheduled to be submitted to the Representative Town Meeting on March 19, Johnson said. (The complete budget hearing schedule can be found here.)

Tesei said his budget proposal is in line with “the desire of the BET’s budget guidelines to keep tax rate increase consistent with the last few years, to less than 3%.” The budget contains, Tesei said, “a continuation of the quality of life with longstanding goals of modest and predictable tax rates.”

The capital improvement projects budget remains static over the current year — at $39.4 million and includes allocations for the drainage projects in the Church Street neighborhood as well as Arcadia Road area in Old Greenwich, the Byram Park Pool initiative, design plans for New Lebanon School and continued soil remediation at Greenwich High School.

One of the few areas to include an increase to town personnel is the Greenwich Fire Department. Tesei, who also serves as the town’s Fire Commissioner, has proposed the addition of nine firefighters to the department’s line staff. The proposal would allow the addition of one firefighter per shift at the Sound Beach and Byram stations where there are two paid firefighters per shift.

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