Naugatuck Republican Town Committee Urges Pay & Hiring Freeze

Naugatuck, CT - The Naugatuck Republican Town Committee is urging the Joint Boards to implement a pay and hiring freeze for new positions in the 2020-2021 budget. The proposed budget includes over $1.3 million worth of payroll increases—approximately $700k on the Borough side, and $600k on the Board of Education side. These amounts include increases in salaries and new hires.

In light of the world’s current events in the midst of a pandemic, the Naugatuck Republican Town Committee believes that it is irresponsible to fund these raises and new hires and place that extra burden on the Naugatuck taxpayers. These unprecedented times have caused unemployment to skyrocket effecting many of the borough’s residents. While so many people are losing their jobs, the town should not be handing out raises. Nor should the borough be hiring for new positions during this time.

It’s the committee’s belief the Joint Boards should do their best to limit the economic impact on the residents of the borough without irresponsibly draining the fund balance. These are challenging times that are affecting everyone. The borough leadership should negotiate with the unions where necessary to halt the increases currently included in the budget during the Budget Adoption meeting scheduled for May 13th in order to avoid any future furloughs and layoffs.

Taxpayers can contact Mayor Hess (nwhess@naugatuck-ct.gov or 203-720-7009) and all Burgess to politely ask the elected officials to remove all scheduled raises from next year’s budget. Burgess emails can be found at http://www.naugatuck-ct.gov/content/113/123/550/8365.aspx . Ask them to do the right thing for the taxpayers of Naugatuck.