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10/07/2015 09:00 AMCarl Fortuna, Jr., an attorney, is seeking his third term as first selectman in Old Saybrook. Prior to his service as first selectman, Fortuna served for 11 years as chairman of the town’s Board of Finance.
In speaking of his and his team’s accomplishments, he first cited the town’s strong fiscal position.
“Last year, the town had the third lowest mill rate increase proposed in a generation and a budget with a one percent spending increase. It passed overwhelmingly,” said Fortuna. “Starting in 2016, the annual town debt payments for all capital projects will be declining, and for the 2014-’15 budget year just finished, we will have a $400,000 surplus due to both under-expended budget and higher revenue from parks and recreation fees and new properties in the tax base.
“Our undesignated fund balance is over eight percent of the town budget, the best it’s been in 10 to 15 years,” said Fortuna.
Debt payments are going down because older debt is retired just as new debt authorized by town votes is issued. New debt includes more than $14 million authorized by the town for several major projects and $3 million to buy The Preserve as open space.
“We’ve been very strong on the environment. With the acquisition of The Preserve, the town is now 30 percent open space, which is something to be extraordinarily proud of,” said Fortuna.
Fortuna said that of the major construction projects, he is most proud of finally getting the Goodwin School windows replaced. He still remembers meetings as far back as 15 years ago when school officials said that the school’s aging windows needed to be replaced.
Among the other capital projects finished in the past two years are the replacement of the middle school roof, replacement of the high school track and tennis courts and installation of a new turf field, and the completion of a new police station at 36 Lynde Street.
Federal and state grant funds secured by the town supported other major work, too, like the dredging of North Cove and the design and planned reconstruction in 2016 of North Main Street, a project that will add new sidewalks and lighting to the road.
Fortuna said he is proud of the capital non-recurring account that was set up in his last year to save cash to pay for unexpected expenses.
“That account allows us to manage unexpected events like the failure of the Town Hall boiler,” said Fortuna.
The boiler that supplies hot water for the Town Hall’s baseboard heating system unexpectedly failed this month; Fortuna said it has to be replaced before colder weather arrives.
Fortuna also highlighted his work to improve town employee hiring practices to make them more professional and objective. Now, when there is an opening, it is advertised and a hiring panel is set up to screen and interview the job candidates.
“We’ve had great success with recent hires. We hired a new [information technology] director, a WPCA [Water Pollution Control Authority] manager, a finance director, and a Public Works maintainer,” said Fortuna. “We also adopted the town’s first Employee Handbook, [with policies] to control nepotism and outside work done by town employees.
Health care costs were controlled by moving employees to more market-based health plans.
When asked about challenges the town faces, Fortuna said, “The biggest one is continuing to comply with the court judgment requiring the town to abate groundwater pollution.”
“There were about 1,800 homes originally in the WPCA program. By the end of 2016, 900 homes will have had their septic systems upgraded, but that still leaves 600 or 700 homes, with some of these properties the most difficult,” said Fortuna. “And the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection is actively involved in seeing that the town has a practical and realistic solution to the last group of properties.
“This is the largest capital project the town has ever undertaken and we’ve been able to onboard the debt for it seamlessly,” said Fortuna.
For the future, Fortuna said he plans to find ways to spur development while keeping the character of the town while also running the town effectively without overloading taxpayers with increasing taxes.
“It’s truly an honor and a privilege to be the representative for the people of Old Saybrook, the highest in my life. From day one, I talked about civility. That is something I’ve been very successful at bringing to the public discourse,” said Fortuna.