Marcia Chambers Photo
Board of Finance
A whopping $112.4 million budget, based on as yet-unresolved state education funding and a gubernatorial proposal to have towns and cities pay their share of teacher pension costs, was unveiled before the town’s Board of Finance (BOF) Monday.
If the state legislature approves the governor’s pension plan, Branford’s budget will increase by at least 6.2 percent, possibly even 1 percent more. If the state legislature rejects the plan, the town budget will increase by about 3.2 percent, Joseph Mooney, the chair of the Board of Finance said at the hearing.
Branford’s state representatives told the BOF at a recent meeting that that the governor’s new tax plans for towns was DOA. But thus far, Mooney told the Eagle after the Monday meeting, other options have not emerged. So for the moment he remains concerned. That could change, he added.
Malloy told reporters yesterday that he will not back down from his proposal to have cities and towns pick up one-third of the cost of teacher pensions.
“No longer can Connecticut be the only state that fully absorbs this cost,” Malloy said.
Not knowing which way the state will go, Branford decided to formulate its budget based on what it might have to pay — an additional $2.7 million for teacher pension fees, which the state has paid in the past and an as yet-to- be determined reduction in the state’s cost sharing education plan.
Awaiting State Decisions
The Board of Education’s budget, to be presented this Thursday night represents the largest portion of the overall budget, coming in at $58,570,371.
The town’s operating and capital budgets, which were made public as the BOF’s hearings got underway, came in at $43.8 million, a figure that includes lease expenditures. Debt service expenses came in at $8.3 million. The total budget came to $112,424,671, a figure that presumably will change when the state figures out its plan of action.
Mooney told the board, members of the RTM who attended the first budget hearing and various department heads, that if there were no pension issue or education cost issue this year, the overall budget increase would amount to a 3.2 percent increase. About 45 people attended the BOF hearing at Fire Headquarters.
“Hopefully we will know more from Hartford soon so we will know exactly what our financial situation is,” Mooney said.” But Branford and other towns across the state may not get the information in time to produce the mill rate.
Police Succession Plan
Marcia Chambers Photo
As part of implementing a succession plan for the town top police officials, Richard Goodwin, (pictured here reading) a member of the Police Commission said the department’s most important item was to hire a deputy chief. The town has been without one since 2012 when then Deputy Chief Tom Fowler left to take a job as police chief of Salisbury, Mass.
Goodwin said Police Chief Kevin Halloran and Captains Geoffrey Morgan and Ray Dunbar, the department’s top leaders, will be retiring starting in 2020. Halloran said he plans to retire in 2021. A number of different skill sets are required for these top jobs, Goodwin said, adding that he hopes the process will be a “seamless transition.”
Chief Halloran gave an update on the state of the department as well. He outlined serious police staffing issues both at the outset of a police career and at the end of that career, explaining major retention issues now exist in the department.
He said the reason were the result of changes in pension policies.
“We are increasing a high turnover,” the chief said. In the last five years we lost 15 people,” he said. In 2011, the town changed its pension plan for the police department, eliminating the traditional plan and replacing it with a 401K.
Six years later that decision has prompted increasing departures, a development not previously anticipated. Officers, especially younger ones, relied on the old- fashioned pension plan, Halloran said. Some towns kept them and some, like Branford, did not.
Halloran said that 15 of “our patrolmen have less than five years’ experience. And half of them have only two years’ experience.”
So after a new officer is trained, which may take two years or more, including a stint at the academy, that same officer, trained on the town dollar, begins to look elsewhere. “Now you have a portable population. You can jump from job to job. It is a struggle to keep people,” the chief said.
“There is a constant turnover. There is no incentive to stay. And as we increase the number of people not in the pension plan, we lose them. “The police pension agreement is separate from the police labor agreement,” he said.
Pension Conflicts After Retirement
At the retirement end, there are pension issues as well. Currently all full time employees of the town, except police department employees, elected officials and certified teachers and administrators, participate in the municipal Employees’ Retirement System (MERS). MERS is a cost-sharing multiple-employer public employee retirement system established by the State of Connecticut and administered by the State Retirement Commission to provide pension benefits to employees of participating municipalities. Benefits are established by state statute and may be amended by legislative action.
Branford now provides police retirement benefits to officer employees hired prior to August 2011 through a defined benefit plan, Finance Director Jim Finch told the BOF. A defined benefit pension plan is a type of pension plan in which an employer/sponsor promises a specified pension payment or lump-sum on retirement that is pre-determined by a formula based on the history of the employee, his or her tenure and age.
For those police officers hired after August 2011 the town provides a defined contribution plan. A defined-contribution plan is a retirement plan in which a certain amount or percentage of money is set aside each year by a company for the benefit of each of its employees. For example, a 401K plan is typically available in the private sector and are considered defined contribution plans.
When the town established the defined contribution plan it did so with the understanding that police officers from other police departments in the state would retire, collect their pension and perhaps start a second career in Branford. Unfortunately, the State Retirement Commission took the position that since Branford participates in the MERS system in other employment areas a police officer cannot collect a pension and work for a participating MERS member. Branford leaders felt this was unfair since police employees in Branford are not part of the MERS retirement system.
As a result, an experienced police officer from another district who has retired from that district with a pension and now wants to work full-time for the Branford police department cannot do so without losing his first pension.
This reality has hurt the Branford police department. “We have lost a cohort of experienced police officers,” Chief Halloran told the BOF. At the same time, that officer might find a more accommodating town up the shoreline. Legislative remedies were sought to address this problem, However, Governor Dannel P. Malloy does not support these efforts and has continued to veto them.
Retirees Seeking Public Office
The current pension reality has also created legal issues for full-time city or town pension holders who then seek elective office. In the past the governor has rejected legislative approved efforts to change this process so that municipal retirees might run for public office without losing their pension.
In June, 2013, the governor rejected legislation that would allow retirees to continue collecting full retirement benefits while receiving compensation for full-time employment at another job. Instead the governor kept the current law in which MERS members who have retired cannot receive their full retirement benefits if they are re-employed by the town or city in which they retired or another participating municipality. The only way they can collect their pension is if they work for less than twenty hours a week or less than ninety days a year at the second job.
This reality may soon change. The state’s highest court, the Supreme Court of Connecticut, has decided to hear East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr.’s appeal against the State Employees Retirement Commission on this issue. Maturo is appealing a ruling that he cannot collect his firefighter benefits while also serving full-time as the East Haven Mayor. The case is slated for oral argument on March 30. An early court ruling, one that comes before July, could alter municipal races across the state.
Fire Chief Outlines Issues
Fire Chief Tom Mahoney discussed the fire services budget totaling $5,452,979, a 3.8 percent increase over last year’s budget.
Mahoney said this year he was seeking an increase of $127,634 to fund additional part-time paramedic ambulance coverage because the department “has experienced a 30 percent increase in call volume over the last 10 years and a 6 percent increase in just the last two years.”
Ambulance revenue has gone up in 2016 to $1.747.404.
Board member Charlie Shelton raised the issue of Branford as an “aging community,” a description with which Mahoney agreed. At one point fire officials told the BOF their paramedical teams need 15 new cardiac monitors.
The second BOF meeting took place Tuesday night where Jim Finch, the town’s finance director, outlined the town’s debt services. A group of department heads presented their budgets as well; it was a speedy hearing, ending in 90 minutes. On Thursday, the Board of Education presents its budget to the BOF.
The BOF will then review the process, making cuts it feels necessary. This happens Monday night. The town-school budget then heads to the Representative Town Meeting (RTM) for its discussion, review and vote. The process then returns to the BOF, which is mandated to set the mill rate. Under the proposed budget presented this week the mill rate comes in at a high 29.08. The current mill rate is 27.41.
But that could change, too.
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