Update: Committee Gets 30-Day Extension to Decide on Towaco Fire Budget

Update: The Township Committee was granted a 30-day extension to reach a decision on the Towaco Fire District budget.

According to committee member Scott Gallopo, the state Division of Local Government Services approved the township's extension request Thursday morning, giving the committee 30 days to work through a payroll issue that couldn't be discussed in its meeting Wednesday night due to legal issues.

Gallopo said that the extension means the committee is no longer bound by its previous decision to call for $75,000 in cuts from the Towaco Fire District's defeated $745,000 budget.

Montville Patch will update this story as it develops.

Below is the original story regarding the Township Committee's decision on Wednesday:

The Township Committee called for $75,000 to be cut from the Towaco Fire District’s recently defeated budget at a special meeting Wednesday night.

The call for cuts comes in response to what committee member Don Kostka called an “outrageous” $286,000 allocation to administrate costs in the district’s proposed budget.

With the proposed cuts, the Towaco district’s budget would fall from $745,000 to $679,000.

“Out of approximately $745,000, $286,000 is allocated to salaries for approximately three individuals,” he said. “That’s 38 percent of the budget. To me, that’s outrageous.”

The Township Committee said that the $75,000 in cuts should come from the administrative line items on the department’s budgets and that the cuts were not meant to impact the training or equipment of the firefighters. Due to legal issues, the township could not discuss individual positions, but held that the cuts were meant to be on an administrative level only.

“The issue here is administrative,” Committeewoman Den Nielson said. “All of us up here appreciate the work of the volunteer firefighters. We understand this is a tough task for you guys.”

Mayor Jim Sandham said that he hoped the fire district would find ways in the future to spend more money on fire training and equipment over other budget items.

“Compared to other fire districts we laid the numbers up against, Towaco is spending less in [training and equipment] than our other departments on those kinds of items,” he said. “I have faith you will do that, because if you don’t, you’ll be back in front of us again next year.”

According to the Township Committee, the Towaco budget allocated $3,000 for fire training in 2011.

Rich Conklin, vice-president of the Towaco Board of Fire Commissioners, said that, because they were dealing with public employees, finding the money to cut out of the budget could be difficult.

“If things don’t work out the way we want them to work, there is no way we can come up with $75,000,” he said. “If things don’t work out our way, Montville and Pine Brook will be covering for us by the end of the year.”

Conklin said that one member of the district’s administrative staff has already retired and that another one is expected to resign by May, though the process is still ongoing. The elimination of those positions would not have any immediate impact on the 2011 budget, he said.

“We are four months into the year and there is going to be some kind of buyout on that one position,” he said. “We will have lost two people and will have to do some outsourcing. That’s going to cost us a few dollars.”

Despite calling for cuts, the Township Committee plans to file for an extension to its March 21 deadline to continue to look at the budget for ways to make the $75,000 cuts within the administrative costs line item.

Committee member Scott Gallopo supported trying for an extension to give the board a chance to “grind through these issues publicly.”

“[There are] items we cannot discuss tonight at advised by council,” he said. “If we file for extensions, we can move forward on a couple of items. It gives us the ability to determine more precisely where that $75,000 will come from.”

Gallopo stressed the committee’s focus on making sure that the budget cuts did not impact the district’s volunteer fire fighters.

“The volunteer firemen, whatever they had when they walked in the door, they will walk out with as well,” he said. “We want to make sure the money is being used as it should."