By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — The town and education budget proposals for 2024-25 were presented to the Board of Finance on Wednesday night.

Together at $246,828,205, it’s almost a quarter-billion dollars in spending.

“It is on an overall basis a 5.41 percent increase,” First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker said of the combined spending plans, or $12.67 million over the current fiscal year.

“Westport is a very special place,” First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker said when introducing introduced the overall numbers. “It’s a vibrant community, it’s an engaged community, and we are making incredible progress,” Tooker said.

She mentioned a number of projects under way, including traffic studies, the downtown parking re-do (the Parker Harding plan would be back at the Planning and Zoning Commission by the end of the month, she said) and the initial phases of looking at whether the police and fire headquarters should have a new, combined facility.

“Look at where our mill rate sites compared to our neighboring communities,” she said. “It continues, and it has been for years, it continues to sit as the third lowest in the mill rate.”

“We are committed to a stable and competitive mill rate,” she said, “and delivering value for money to our residents, to our business owners.”

Sixty three percent of overall spending in the plans is for the schools, 34 percent is town-side spending, and other organizations account for 3 percent, she said. That percentage breakdown, Tooker said, has not changed since she took office.

She then, with staff, went into details of the town-side spending.

Tooker’s proposed budget, $84,308,124, is $1.6 million, or 1.96 percent, more than the current year.

Of the town spending, public safety accounts for 32 percent, Public Works at 16 percent, Parks and Recreation at 10 percent and pension costs at about 25 percent, Tooker said.

Tooker said pension and other retirement costs were up. She said that in the parks budget, some maintenance and field initiatives are under way, driving costs up some.

The hiring of four new police officers for the schools accounted to extra costs in the police budget, she said.

“Jen thank you, that was a great presentation,” Board of Finance Chairman Lee Caney after Tooker concluded, agreeing that the town had some exciting initiatives in the works, including a new Long Lots Elementary School, Longshore Club Park improvements, dealing with downtown parking issues.

Board of Education Chairwoman Lee Goldstein presented the schools’ 2024-25 spending plan to the finance board.

“It is with gratitude and pride that on behalf of the board we are presenting our budget,” she said. “I think at this point we sometimes start to think of the budget as a thing in and of itself, and it’s really not.

“It’s a means to an end,” she said. “And for us, that end is the education of 5,400 students. To give them and their families the best education for the money.”

The schools are asking for a $147,300,744 budget for the next fiscal year. That’s about $11 million, or 8.08 percent, more than the current year.

Goldstein said 5.2 percentage points of that increase is for health care.

“We’ve worked over the past few years with the Board of Finance and RTM to determine the best strategies for saving money, to serve our employees’ health-care needs,” Goldstein said.

She said another driver is special education.

“We have more students with special needs, their needs are increasingly complex,” Goldstein said. “It’s our obligation, our legal obligation and moral obligation, and it’s our privilege, to educate every student to reach their full potential.”  

“I thought it was a great presentation this year, you hit on the main drivers of your budget,” Caney said.

“In the past we had gone through line by line and it’s not all that productive given the size of your budget,” he said. “Obviously health care, transportation, special education and contractual salary increases are kind of what’s driving your budget.

“And I also appreciate the fact that you’re coming in with a reasonable budget … the gamesmanship that we had in the years past I don’t think built good relationships between out board and your board,” Caney said.

The finance board plans to hold hearings on the proposed budgets, then vote on them March 19. On April 3, it will hear requests to restore money cut from the spending plans, and send the budgets to the Representative Town Meeting for final action. The new fiscal year starts July 1.

Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 36 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.