Old Saybrook First Selectman Carl P. Fortuna, Jr., presented his budget proposal for 2019–’20 to the Board of Selectmen (BOS) at its Feb. 12 meeting, which proceeded to approve it. The proposed increase is $204,184, or one percent, over the current year spending plan.

Taken with the proposed education budget, the overall increase for the town’s combined proposed budgets would be two percent, if approved with no changes.

The budget was presented and discussed in an informational joint BOS and Board of Finance (BOF) meeting on Feb. 19. On Friday, March 1, the BOF will formally review both the town budget and the education budget.

A public meeting will then take place at which both budgets will be presented. Next, the BOF will decide whether to modify either or both budgets and these final budgets will be presented to the town in a referendum in May.

Fortuna eliminated $134,063 from the requested budgets submitted to him by the heads of town departments. The bulk of that savings, $130,395, came from the Police Department’s submitted budget request. A third full-time dispatcher position approved by the police commission might have to be hired mid-way through the fiscal year, as half that salary, or $88,555, was omitted from the police support services budget.

The dispatcher position is the only added position in the entire budget, and the first new position added to the town’s budget for several years, Fortuna wrote in a Feb. 12 memo to the BOS about his budget presentation.

The proposed budget takes into consideration the Grand List of October 2018, upon which property taxes for 2019–’20 will be based. This list reflects the most recent revaluation, an increase in market value of roughly $28 million. At the current mill rate, this would increase property tax revenues by around $540,000, not including tax relief for the elderly or pending assessment appeals.

Fortuna acknowledged in his memo to the BOS that the proposed budget would necessitate an increase in the mill rate, which was reduced last year for the first time in decades and is currently 19.6. As is, the budget would necessitate an increase of 0.16 mills or 0.8 percent, resulting in a new mill rate of 19.76.

For a resident whose home has a market value of $450,000, for instance, that would mean an annual increase of $36.40 in property taxes.

“One of the things I’m very happy about is I think it is very reasonable [budget] document as it stands,” Fortuna said.

Also taken into consideration is the uncertainty of state funding. This budget, like the previous one, projects just $375,000 in funding from the state. Fortuna recommended in his memo that state funds in excess of that amount be placed in a reserve fund to offset any future reduction in state funding.

Debt service is projected to decline $217,000 over the last fiscal year, Fortuna wrote.

“The last time we bonded was in 2013,” Fortuna told the Harbor News. “We are now approximately seven years past the last time we went out for bonding. All the items that were 5 or 10 years old are now 12 and 17 years old—we generally have 20-year debt obligations.

“Our debt over the next five years goes down dramatically,” he said. “We have older debt that is being retired and we have the debt that we used to build the police station and four school projects at the same time. That was seven years ago. We’re over a third of the way done paying for all those items.”

The proposed budget continues the practice of adding of adding to the town’s reserves; $734,591 will be paced in reserve accounts.