WATERTOWN HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM

Mr. Archer, Chairman, called the meeting to order at 7:15 p.m.
            Mr. Wick read aloud the Notice of Budget Public Hearing as follows:

FISCAL"NOTICE OF BUDGET PUBLIC HEARING YEAR 2002-2003 BUDGETS 
            TOWN OF WATERTOWN
            CONNECTICUT

            The Legal Voters of the Town of Watertown and those eligible to vote in Town Meetings are hereby WARNED AND NOTIFIED of a Budget Public Hearing to be held on Wednesday, July, 10, 2001 at 7:00 p.m. at the Watertown High School Auditorium, 324 French Street, Watertown, Connecticut to hear comments on the following Fiscal Year 2002-2003 budgets. 

Watertown Town Council
Budget Public Hearing
July 20, 2002
Page 2

            Dated at Watertown, Connecticut this 3^rd day of July, 2002.

            _____________________________
            Lee Archer, Chairman
         Watertown Town Council

RETURN OF WARNING
TOWN OF WATERTOWN
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

            I hereby certify that on July 3, 2002 I left a duplicate copy of the attached Notice of Public Hearing, Town of  
            Watertown, Connecticut, with Virginia Stewart, its Town Clerk.

            I further certify that on July 3, 2002 I caused a copy of said Notice of Public Hearing to be published in the Town Times, which newspaper has a substantial circulation in said Town on July 4, 2002.

            I further certify that on July 3, 2002 I caused to be set upon the signpost or other exterior places nearest the office of the Town Clerk and all other places and signposts designated by the Town, a written copy of said Notice of Public Hearing signed by the Town Manager of the Town of Watertown.

            I further certify, that all the above acts were done at least five (5) days before the holding of the Public Hearing on July 10, 2002.

            Dated at Watertown, Connecticut this 3^rd day of July, 2002.

                                                            _____________________________
                                                                                 Charles A. Frigon
                                                            Acting Town Manager

TOWN CLERK'S CERTIFICATON AS TO

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING AND RETURN OF NOTICE 

            I hereby certify that the attached Notice of Public Hearing and the foregoing Return of Notice of Public Hearing are duly recorded in the records of the Town of Watertown, CT and that Lee Archer was Chairman of the Watertown Town Council on the date the Notice was signed and that Charles A. Frigon was Acting Town Manager on the date the Return of Notice was signed.

            Dated at Watertown, Connecticut this 3^rd day of July, 2002.

                                                            _____________________________
                                                                                       Virginia Stewart, Town Clerk"

Watertown Town Council
Budget Public Hearing
July 10, 2002
Page 3 

           Mr. Archer:  Time is the second showing of the proposed Town budget.  Some people even up to a few minutes ago were asking why we would have a Public Hearing on this again, and the reason why is because this is representative government.  We are supposed to be representing the will of the people.  The last budget was presented and defeated, therefore we come back with another proposed budget.  The last time we had this Public Hearing there were exactly 6 people from the Town in the room; tonight by my count we have about 60 which is a 1,000% improvement.  At the last Public Hearing no one from the public came to the microphone and said this is not the budget for us, you should go back, rework it, and bring it up again.  Tonight we're hoping to get some input from you folks on what we're going to explain to you.  I say explain instead of show; at the last Public Hearing we had a run at the slide show that made all of us very clear and as easy to understand as possible.  We're having one technical problems here with the projector, this is kind of an old projector, but we still have the same presentation, but Rob Kane, the Chairman of our Finance Subcommittee is going to get up and do the best he can of explaining what is on the slides.  Rob will go through what the previous budget was that was taken to Referendum since I think it's a good starting point for everyone to understand exactly what was (inaudible) and then move on to a proposed budget from that point. 

            Mr. Kane:  Thank you, Lee.  Basically on April 16^th we came up with a proposed budget that the Finance Subcommittee had worked diligently on, and I just want to talk about that really quickly because there were only 6 people in the room and probably most of those were Town employees or ourselves, so I just wanted to go over it really quick.

            Initially the Town budget was $18,275,320 for year 2001/2002.  The proposed this year was $18,792,216, a difference of only $516,896, a total increase of only 2.83% in the one year period.  The Board of Education budget, 2001/2002 was $26,925,036.  2002/2003 $28,002,000, a difference of $1,077,000 basically or a 4% increase.  The combined budget for 2001/2002 was $45,200,000; this year 2002/2003 our proposed was $46,794,000 a total increase of only 3.53%.  That's it, 3.53% was in the increase there.  The mill rate of course would have increased 1.25 mills at that point.  What does this mean?  What does a mill rate mean?  What does that mean to you guys?  What does that mean to the taxpayers of the Town?  Property taxes are calculated by the mill rate; 1 mill equals $1.00 for each $1,000 of assessed value.  A 25.81 mill rate equals $25.81 for each $1,000 of assessed value.  Let's say you have a home assessed at $100,000.  2002/2003 our proposed budget, $100,000 would be $25.81 or $2,581 in taxes for a home that is assessed at $100,000.  Compared to last year, when the mill rate was 24.56 that would mean an increase to that person for $125.00. 

            Let's talk about increases in surrounding towns.  Remember I said 3.53% was our goal.

            Waterbury:            31%           
Seymour               12%           
Thomaston            5.2%
New Milford           4.8%
Bethlehem            4.2%
Middlebury            3.6% - their mill rate is 32, much higher than ours

            Again this is a very good, lean budget, it really is.  3.5% compared to surrounding towns that I just mentioned which is very comparable to ours is really much lower in comparison. Now why the increase?  Why 3.5?  There are three reasons really:

§         Inflation, fixed costs rise, it's just a, we all know that in our daily lives.

§         Necessity as far as capital expenditures, and I'll go through those in a second.

§         Costs increase beyond our control.

            Fixed costs would include salaries, utilities, insurance and maintenance of buildings.  All of these things, I'm sure you can see in your own lives and business have increased.  These are fixed.

           Capital expenditures – vehicles, we have a great plan in place with the Street, Highway, Police and Fire Departments where we can replace vehicles.  We have a plan to replace vehicles, actually it was put in place many years ago, so previous Councils could take credit for that, but it's a great plan where they have the ability to replace vehicles on a pattern, on a time schedule, so if something does go wrong with one of the vehicles we don't have to hurry or scramble to buy a new vehicle and have this huge increase all of a sudden, so it's a nice put in place plan.  Roads – we have to take care of our roads.  We all know that those need upkeep all the time, especially with the Winters we have.  Machinery – I believe there's a backhoe in here that we need to replace that's from the 1970's.  Obviously that is needed to do the necessary work we have to do.  Computers – this is 2002.  For the most part they work very well; we'll discount this one right here, but obviously we need computers, we can't live without computers, we can't run our daily lives or businesses without computers.  These need to be upgraded.

            What costs increased are out of our control?  Rising municipal insurance costs.  I hate to mention 9/11 but that's a fact of life.  Insurance costs are going through the roof, and that's one of the reasons, not all of it, but that's one of the reasons, and there are others that insurance costs in municipalities are just rising beyond our control.  Waste collection fees are rising and a State mandated Plan of Development.  We've got State mandates that just come down that we have to follow and abide by and these are just taking effect. 

            Let's look at these more carefully.:

§         Municipal insurance costs – increase of $102,795 for a 20% increase in the Town budget
           that came from insurance costs.

§         Garbage collection fees - $124,754 or 24% of the increase.

§         Plan of Development, State mandated is $50,000 or 10% of the increase.

            These costs, again, are beyond our control and take up a good percentage of this budget.

            Those 3 expenses that I mentioned, I wish these could be highlighted up there, cause it really tells the story and it's nice to visualize these things that I'm talking about, but account for $272,549 in new expenses.  All new expenses.  That's 54% of the Town's Budget increase came from new expense.  Now I know in your own lives, your own businesses, if you have 54% of your budget came from new expenses, what would you do? They're unavoidable.

            Now if you take actually, this is a good point, and again I wish you could see it, but the Town budget increase, minus these 3 items, take these 3 items and pull them aside, is only 1.31%.  That's it.  So these are not extravagant budgets, these are not inflated budgets, these are legitimate figures.  There's a 1.31% increase if it weren't for those items in the Town budget.

            Capital expenditures – I talked about the backhoe, it's 27 years old  1975 that would make it, I guess.  It's been rebuilt twice since 1975 and of course it's no longer worth fixing.  It's used for Town construction projects, roads, sidewalks, I mean this is a necessity, something that the Town necessarily needs.

            Fire truck, Fire car, Car #3 is a 1997 pickup, it's unsuitable for current needs.  Some of you are Volunteer Fireman in the room, if you see these guys work, they do an unbelievable job, but they really need to get access to their equipment, respond to emergencies, respond to something immediately, and if you saw this truck, it's just not feasible for what the Fire Department needs to do.  If we're talking about personal safety and issues like that, it's really important that these guys have the proper tools, machinery, and vehicles to do what they have to do to protect our Town.  This vehicle, although it may not be used for the Fire Department, will be used in the Parks and Recreation Department.  We're not throwing it away or wasting it, we're going to use it in the Parks and Recreation Department where they need a vehicle.

            There's a dump truck that we need – 17years old.  There is a lot going on, there's a lot of work to it, it gets beat up, I mean 17 years is a long time for a dump truck, but the engine is barely hanging on and that's why we need this new vehicle.  It's incredible.  You guys can talk personally if your want and ask questions about these vehicles

            Police Vehicles- we need 3 new patrol cars.  The Police vehicles obviously, one thing that came to our attention in the Finance Subcommittee meeting, is not just mileage when you look at a car, but hours.  These cars maybe don't put a lot of mileage on them, I'm sure they do put a lot of mileage on them, but compared to you and I when we go to work every day or whatever, but they're on all the time, 24/7 they are running, they are being used, so hours on a vehicle are very important as well and these are really getting worn down.  We're looking for one S.U.V.  Now this past Winter wasn't very bad at all, but then again it's New England, wait a minute and the weather will change, so we know it's going to get worse in the Winter time so we need an S.U.V.  Each of these vehicles, actually this answers my own question, they do have over 80,000 miles on it, so they really do have a lot of mileage as well as again the amount of time that they're being used.

            Computers – the offices of Town Clerk and Assessor need new computers.  The Town Clerk has no computer at all.  How many people here have offices without a computer?  Not many I bet, and the Town Clerk has none.  Obviously if we get these computers it will increase accuracy, increase the efficiency in these Departments and necessity.

            We have road and drainage construction, we have different maintenance items, and let me just reiterate that this is a very responsible budget.  The Finance Subcommittee worked very hard on this.  There are no excessive pay increases.  There are no unnecessary capital expenditures.  The increase is equal or below the expected increases of surrounding communities and we take into account the current economic conditions that we face.

            That was our original presentation back on April 16^th I believe, and again, I wish I could show it to you.  When we did the original presentation people showed up and no one really knew the true facts of what was in this budget.  As I said there are fixed costs beyond our control, there's inflationary things we have to deal with, there's new vehicles and maintenance equipment we need, and this budget is much lower than surrounding towns.

            As we all know, the Budget Referendum failed but we feel without maybe proper information out there, but it did, so we came back and we worked with Frank Nardelli who I will refer to if we get too detailed.  He's excellent and he helps us out a great deal in this process, but we came back with a couple of other things.  We are looking at of course the original proposal, and then a .9 increase which we would do some work, and then of course another one.  What we have is some money came through from Anthem Blue Cross stock and it's a demutualization, so there are monies that we have from a sale of stock which total about $400,000.  Now legal opinion is that belongs to the Town, so we can say that yes, that is ours, but obviously the money was put in through the employees on their own health benefits and insurance.  This money was not available to us at the original time, on April 16^th this money was not available.  This money came after the fact.  We can gamble with that in a way by saying all right, we've got $400,000, let's use it, or we can look at it more responsibly, and I'll have Lee talk about that later.

            Worker's Compensation – we found that we can save a little bit of money there, and of course there's the inevitable Fund Balance we can attach money from.  Questions on the Fund Balance I'd like Frank to talk about, why towns do that, what's the norm, most of it is State mandated.  The State says you have to put money in the Fund Balance and keep money aside for your towns, so there are percentages that we're looking it.  If that's the case, in the .9 scenario, which is another scenario we've been working on, we would have to have expenditure reductions on the Town side of $168,000; the Board of Education's side $252,000, for a total of $42,000 in reduction.  Now that will take us to a .9 mill increase which would be a 25.46, as opposed to the current 24.56.  A lot of that has to do with again the Anthem demutualization, the worker's compensation savings, and then there's another thing.  In the proposed budget it was planned for a Town Engineer, and obviously with the Budget failing that person has not started, so there would be some savings in the time that this person would come on in his salary because we don't have that position filled currently so there's some money that we could just transfer from the Town Engineer savings, so that would give us a .9 increase.  But again, I'm going to turn it over to Lee because I know you have questions on the demutualization and on what kind of mill rate we should have, and hopefully give input, but I'll turn it over to Lee to speak to those issues and let you guys come up and talk about it.

            What I wanted to do originally, that there is a lot of false information out there that the work we did was correct, was just, I'm comfortable with it because I know we did a good job on both sides of the aisle and I know that the Town does a wonderful job, the people that you have sitting up here.  Thank you very much.

            Mr. Archer:  The Anthem Blue Cross stock demutualization, if I was a Wall Street guy I could probably explain it to you, but since I'm not, we're going to let Frank Nardelli take a crack at it, if you would?

            Mr. Nardelli:  Well when Anthem went to a stock company, all of the towns issued stock and it was based on, as far as Watertown goes, it was based on the amount we were paying for people who were 65 and over, so it wasn't based on if you were co-paying or in a Union or what not, it was based on a premium we paid for people who were 65 and older, and Anthem made a computation as to how many shares the Town would receive.  The Town received like 7,000 share of this Anthem stock which we brought to the Council, and the Council basically said sell the stock, which we did, and we put the money aside into a money market fund where it's earning interest.  We were waiting to see what happened with the State, because the State also received a lot of money and all the other towns did, we were waiting to see if anyone came forward as far as Unions coming after that money, and at this particular date the Town has not received anything from any Unions putting any claims on this money, and Blumenthal also came out with an option saying basically it's the Town's money, and so has Anthem Blue Cross.  We went to a seminar that they performed, and they basically said it's the Town's money, so that money is sitting in a mutual fund right now earning money, so that's why we brought that forward

            Mr. Archer:  Now Blumenthal's opinion of that was not, I just want to clarify for everyone, his opinion had not been heard yet when we went forward with the first budget 

            Mr. Nardelli:  That's correct.

            Mr. Archer:  Now I want to make that point because there was a letter in the paper, I can't remember who it was written by, it doesn't really matter, but it suggested, you know, here we go again, you know there's $440,000 that was just sitting around that we didn't tell you about.  Well first of all that's absurd.  What would be my motivation, or Rob's or Dick's or Jean King's?  What would be our motivation to do that?  There isn't one.  Since the budget was formed and let out of the barn, so to speak, on its way to Referendum, that decision by Blumenthal was made, that still is not an absolute concrete decision, am I correct?

            Mr. Frigon:  That's correct.

            Mr. Archer:  I believe it's the Connecticut Teacher's Union?

            Mr. Frigon:  Yes, it's not a binding decision by Blumenthal, it is the Connecticut Teacher's Association that is or
            may appeal Blumenthal's decision, but we feel very confident that the decision would be in our favor.

            Mr. Archer:  So this is yet another reason why we're having a Public Hearing on this.  There's $400,000 in an account that we can cash out and use to lower the mill rate increase. The Connecticut Teacher's Union is considering an appeal to Blumenthal's decision so we could go ahead and spend that, but we have to do it with the caveat that if the Connecticut Teacher's Union prevails in their appeal, we may have to give it back, and that's not something that I personally was comfortable making that decision on my own.  That's rolling the dice to some extent, and I felt that input was needed from the public in order to make that gamble.  I think that clarifies the Anthem stock.

            The other thing to remember is that budgets are fluid.  They're very rarely fixed for very long.  Everyone here, I
            assume, is a homeowner or lives in a home at least, not on the street I hope.  You have your own budget, I make
            up a budget, I revise it every month because it changes.  In October of last year, my furnace was fine.  In
            November it had to be replaced.  I replaced my septic 3 years ago.  My kids have braces, things I couldn't have
            anticipated certainly when they were born.  Everyone has been through these things, and the point is the budget
            is a fluid item and from one month to the next it changes.  We had the Anthem money and we couldn't use it;
            now we have the Anthem money and the opinion from Blumenthal is that we can use it.  One month insurance
            costs were "x", not they're "y".  The important thing to remember is that the budget changes on a constant
            basis.  All you have to do is spend a few New England Winters to realize that sometimes you get no snow, and 
            sometimes you get buried.  That's going to create differences in the budget; it's a fluid item, it does not remain
            stable for very long, and that's why from one budget Referendum to the next the numbers could change.  At this
            point I'll turn this over to Scott Baclawski who will talk about the Board of Education's budget. 

            Mr. Baclawski:  This is our budget proposal back from the June 4^th Referendum so we're bringing this back to you again in an effort to further explain what we had in the budget the last time around to elicit any comments or questions or suggestions as you see fit.

            This right here is how the Board of Education budget starts out.  This book has every item from our budget listed into object codes, categories, positions, you name it.  This has got two proposals in it that we've worked on so far this year, with one cut that was made.  We pared that down into a book this size.  We put some of the numbers together in an effort to make it more manageable for the Board of Education's Budget Committee to review and to make cuts from, which we have done.  That brings us down to this book here, which is what we bring to you.

            On the first page of the book is our overall budget summary.  The far left hand column is all the objects, these are the categories that we put everything into in order to give it a classification.  There's descriptions here of each of the objects.  The next column is the 2001/2002 that we're currently getting this year.  The next column is the original proposed budget for 2002/2003.  The next column is cuts that were made from the Budget Committee from the Board of Education.  The next column is when we cut further.  When we met with the Town Council's Budget Committee they asked us to go from a 6.52% increase down to a 4% increase, so we cut an additional $677,629.  And that brings us to our proposed 2002/2003 budget of $28,002,037, and that was what was put forth in the June 4^th Referendum.  The next column shows you variances and we're going to put that on the overhead for you and break that down, and the last column gives you percentage of change, either positive or negative for each of the objects that we put forth.  (Tape #1, Side A ended – may have missed some.)  The last page was major variances.

            Variances are differences in cost from last year to this year.  If you look across the rows here it gives you a breakdown on Obj. 111 – Certified Salaries.  In 2001/2002 our Certified Salaries cost $14,522,534.  The projected 2002/2003 Certified Salaries is going to cost us $14,990,313.  That is an additional cost of $437,784.  Our Certified Salaries come from negotiated contracts, for the teachers, paraprofessionals, custodians, so everybody that has a contact gets paid a raise year to year as deemed by their contract.  There's a further breakdown on this of all the categories within the certified salaries, our central office administrators, teachers, there is a line in there for a proposed staff increase.  We are requesting 4 new teaching positions and I have an overhead for that I can show you.  Our department head coordinator salaries, our school position salaries, our summer school salaries, and our retirement salaries. 

            The next page on major variances is our Obj. 112 – Non-Certified Salaries.  For 2001/2002 it was $3,676,080.  With the new contracts that we are obligated to for 2002/2003 that's going to be a cost of $3,961,584.  That's a variance of $285,504.  There's a further breakdown of this sheet as well.  The Non-Certified Salaries consist of custodians, nurses, paraprofessionals, secretaries, a network coordinator, maintenance supervisor, financial service supervisor, director of operations.  We have a proposed staff increase of 2 custodian positions.  Our hourly teachers, nurse's aides, summer aides, board clerk, call in substitutes, summer maintenance, cleaning person for Munson House, and our budget salary adjustments for non-affiliated personnel which was cut in the 2002/2003.

            The next page are major variances for the 2002/2003 budget in several different object codes.  Our coaches salaries, our employee benefits, our professional and technical services, our legal counsel, our professional services, utilities, contract repairs, and maintenance.  Underneath each one of these objects is a brief description of what's included in this.  The coach's salary is what the Board of Education approved for the Athletic Director's salary and we have a new Assistant Cheerleading coach position which is included in this item as well.

            Our Employee Benefits again are mandated costs to us.  We have to pay social security, medicare, worker's compensation, and blue/cross blue/shield medical care costs out of that object.

            The next object, Professional and Technical Services, are testing and evaluation costs, special education costs, and there was money in last year for the Superintendent Search, so there's a reduction in this variance of $5,096.

           Our Legal Counsel is what we pay out to have attorneys represent the Board of Education in contract negotiations and different other legal services which we require, such as consultation with regards to special education needs, different student needs, expulsion hearings, etc.  We have a $10,000 increase in that line item because of the way we're seeing costs this year, we want to make sure we have plenty of financial coverage in that object.

            Our Professional Services, Obj. #30, we have an increase of hockey and Police and Fire for coverage there, professional development for teachers and principals, which is contractual.  There is an additional $32,130 in that line item.

            Obj. #410 is our Utilities.  We see a small decrease in that this year, due to the gas budget for the John Trumbull School.  That's a decrease of $5,084 for the proposed 2002/2003.

            Our Contract Repairs and Maintenance - we're going to see an increase in our electrical, plumbing and maintenance contract services, the cost of copiers, the elevator maintenance at John Trumbull, fire alarms for the building, the monitoring of security, repairs, maintenance, the trucks, and asbestos abatement.

            The next page under major variances we have lease and rental costs, constructions projects, which I have an overhead to show you, pupil transportation which is a contractual cost to us, our property insurance which as Rob stated earlier, we have no control over.  Due to the events of 9/11 we're going to see increases in not only our property insurance, but increases in our liability insurance for our buildings. 

            Obj. 539 – Field and Athletic Trips, Obj. 560, tuition, which we're going to see a little bit of a decrease in, and our travel & conferences which is the conference and travel budget for areas where there was no prior budget, we see an increase in travel allowance for our various administrators and there's an additional $4,730 in that item.

            The last page of our variances breakdown we have our instructional supplies line item, textbooks and workbooks, and these workbooks are inclusive of workbooks that students get on an annual basis to use through the school year, but at the end of the year they are brought home with the student or disposed of and need to be replaced for the following year.  We also have in here a new math textbook for our elementary schools.

            Library and Periodicals – there's a slight increase in that due to the budget cut back in 2001/2002 so we're trying to get some of those funds back up to replace some of the libraries and periodicals.

            Obj. #730 – Equipment.  There was a cut in that line item so there's a $53,995 less than this current fiscal year.

            Vehicles, Purchase of – we put in for the lease of a new maintenance vehicle for our schools.  When you came in through the front door there was a red pickup truck out front.  That is the vehicle we're looking to replace.

            Dues & Fees – a slight increase there.

            We made a cut in our budget for Athletics of $21,242.

            Now I'm going to give you a quick overview on what we're looking at for new items in the proposed 2002/2003 Board of Education budget.  Knowing the items that we discussed in the first object, that Obj. #111, for Certified Staff, we are requesting 4 new teaching positions at the High School.  There are various reasons for each one of these positions.  As you can see they go from a Social Studies Teacher to a Math Teacher to a World Language Teacher to an English Teacher.  The Social Studies Teacher is there because we're going to be implementing a new Civics Curriculum within the High School.  The Math and English Teachers are there because we have more students in the classrooms than we have teachers available to make sure that our student class sizes are at an applicable level.  We also put in for one World Language Teacher.  The High School currently offers French and Spanish, and we don't have enough Spanish teachers to take care of all the students requesting Spanish as their curriculum of choice, so we requested a World Language Teacher to cover the overflow and ensure enough staffing so students have their World Language choice.

We have 2 Non-Certified staff increases in the 2002/2003 budget.  We have a request in for 1 Floater Custodian so that we have somebody available to help out when a custodian is out sick, or for or any other reason, we can use this custodian to plug into that position and that way there we can eliminate the majority of our overtime costs in that area.  The overtime costs are costing more than hiring a custodian on a full time basis to take care of those overtime issues.  The second custodial and maintenance position was for a General Maintenance and Boiler Custodian – Several schools are getting older and we want to ensure property maintenance of the boils and the equipment in these schools so we don't have problems with them further down the road.  A lot of the maintenance has been somewhat neglected on some of those boilers and we want to try and get them up to snuff so we don't have major expenditure with boiler replacement. 

Construction Projects - Probably the largest portion of our request for this current budget year, the Board of Education is requesting several different things to help us with the upkeep of our schools and improvements in several of the school areas:

Obj. 3450 - Construction.  This page shows you a list on the second left hand column of all the items that were requested for the 2002/2003 budget.  You can see through the different columns the different cuts that were made over time.  The far right hand column are the last things that were remaining that were requested for the 2002/2003 budget.  On this page there's just a singular item left that was requested and left it, and we actually made a cut in the overall projected cost of it and that was the paving project for the lower level of the Heminway Park School parking lot.  That's the lot that is directly adjacent to Deland Field and that lot is in serious need of paving, and it gets a lot of use during the school year because our school busses enter into the lot and our students get (inaudible) up there and they come in at the end of the day and they get onto the busses at that location, so we felt that was something that we needed to take care of this year as a top priority.

There were other paving projects that were requested, but we tried to do those on a priority basis and the Heminway Park was the top priority paving project.

Unidentified Woman in Audience:  Why are you fencing in old Heminway?

Mr. Baclawski:  That was a request for one of the areas around the parking lot that was considered an area where children could get into and possibly go down one of the side hills there, but that was cut out at this juncture due to the cost, so it was not included.

Unidentified Woman in Audience:  It's being cut out?

Mr. Baclawski:  It's not included, correct.

Unidentified Woman in Audience:  The fencing project at Judson – is that being cut out also? 

Mr. Baclawski:  There were some fencing requests for the ball fields that are part of the schools.  Some of the ball fields have fencing, but fencing has either been ripped down or beat up by whomever, and there was a request in to replace some of that fencing that had been torn down over the years, but due to financial constraints that item had to be cut so that's currently not in the 2002/2003 proposal.

The next page for construction projects, again on the right hand column we have in there 3 items left on this page.  We have one sidewalk paving project at the High School because in front of the High School, the concrete sidewalk has sunk down over time due to settling of the concrete and the ground, and there's currently a gap between the concrete and curbing and we felt it was a safety issue so we wanted to keep that in and get that area paved on the sidewalk so there wouldn't be any kind of injuries there.

Stage lighting controls here at the High School.  If you have an opportunity to go back there after, there's a lighting board that's probably original to the school.  Unfortunately the plugs and the wires that are used to operate the stage lighting controls are severely antiquated and are in need of replacement.  We felt this was a safety issue and we wanted to get a start on the replacement of those items so you can see where it was originally projected for $30,000, but we were able to cut that back to $4,500 due to the different estimates that we got and we left that in as a possibility for the 2002/2003 budget.

The next item here at the High School was the replacement of the intercom system.  I believe that system was original to the School and unfortunately it's somewhat intermittent in its availability to be used in certain classrooms.  We felt that was a priority issue, a safety issue, because teachers and the office are not able to get in contact with each other.  We just recently finished the one at Swift and we wanted to move on and get the intercom replaced at the High School as well.

The last page of our construction projects is a system-wise request.  There are 2 items remaining on this page.  The first one is a window shade and blind installment for security. Our schools currently undergo what is called a "Code Orange" and this is in lieu of post 9/11 events.  The lock down procedure for the schools is meant for safety.  If somebody should come into the school or somebody is spotted on the exterior of the school that's considered suspicious we wanted to make sure we had proper security for our building and our classrooms so we left in there for replacement and installation for blinds for security purposes.

The second item on this page that remains in currently is security improvements.  This is for Judson, Polk, Heminway, Swift, and Watertown High School.  For those of you who have been at John Trumbull, you know that in order to get into the building during the class day, you have to ring in through a buzzer system in order to be allowed entrance into the building.  Again that's for security purposes and we wanted to carry that over to these other schools as well so we can start to improve security at our buildings and make sure our students are safe. 

The next page is what's called Obj. #730 – Equipment Request Budget.  This is again for 2002/2003 which we requested.  The far right hand column are items that remain in the budget currently requested.  These come from the administrators and the faculty members at the schools requesting equipment to further the curriculums within their facilities, so these items are all forwarded to the Superintendent and go through the budget process as well.

Judson - request for an electronic typewriter






Heminway – request for a 4 double burner electric hot plate






Judson – request for vision screening machine and stand






Heminway – request for one Lab Incubator 

The next page, this is kind of detailed, I understand, but I wanted to give you an overview of the smaller items that are in this line item to just give you a quick show on new requested.

Swift - Physical Education Department – Upper Body Fitness Machine (that goes in with the curriculum for the P.E. Department)

Science – Standard (inaudible) Illuminator

Storage for Safety Glasses

The next page is a few items remaining.

High School – Drying rack in Art Room

Music Department - Percussion workstation with accessories

High School - Electrical (inaudible)

6 Electronic Balances for the Science Department

Skeleton

1 Solid State Induction Coil

High School –Industrial Arts – Dual Stage Air Filter

Graphic Arts - 20 Inch Scroll Saw

(Inaudible) for use with the offset press

2 replacement items in here for 95 classroom chairs and 95 classroom desks

1 Shredder

Pitching Machine for Athletics Department

File Cabinet

The next page are System wide on the top

4 Vide Cams

2 Visual Pods

2 Listening Centers

10 Overhead Projection Machines with Carts

4 Projection Machines 

The next page has one item remaining for maintenance and grounds:

1 Equipment Trailer ( something that needs to be replaced)

The last page on the Equipment Budget Obj. #730 again is the Maintenance Department is a request for 2 new snow throwers.  System-wide the next item down, is our request for computer equipment.  Our computer centers are doing very well, but unfortunately some of the equipment is old and becomes antiquated and we need to replace it to keep our curriculums up and running properly.  If you run through this item you can see where we started out, where the cuts were made.  We went from a $387,040 request and we cut that down to $40,000.  Unfortunately there's not a lot of money left in there for the computers we requested from that curriculum teacher, but it's what we have with the other items that all fit into place.

I hope I didn't bore you awful terribly, but you can see this is just a basic overview.  We've gone through this for several meetings, looking at each item, making different determinations on what's needed, how badly it's needed, what do we have funds for, what do we have available to us and through other means.  Our budget, again like Rob said for the town's Side, for the Board of Education's side is ditto.  It's a very comprehensive budget.  We did our cuts from our initial proposal of 6.52% down to 4% and we feel that it's a very good budget, we don't feel it's overly excessive, and we feel that we prioritized things in there in a way to make sure that we were able to get certain things done that are truly needed to be done this year.  I thank you for your time and I'd be happy to field any questions for you.

            Mr. Archer:  How many pages were in that budget?  I was talking to someone and they said it was 170 plus.  How many people are on the Budget Subcommittee?

            Mr. Baclawski:  4.

            Mr. Archer:  How many hours do you figure you spent on that?

            Mr. Baclawski:  Several.

            Mr. Archer:  Everyone who works on the Council and the Board of Ed is a resident of the Town; they're all taxpayers.  Why the hell would I want to raise my own taxes?  It's because I went through the budget and I couldn't find anything else to take out.  The last thing I want to do is shell out more money every year.

            I'm going to turn this over to the, I'm glad Scott went through so much detail so you can see how much is involved in this thing.  It's not an easy process.  It's not something that we're all dying to go through a second time, but obviously we will.  I'm going to open up the mike and invite everyone to come up.  I don't know if everyone will; I'd appreciate as many people as possible to give your opinions on what else should be removed.  Scott went through some real, very detailed explanations about what is in the budget, and as citizens of the Town, in the Public Hearing format, you have the right to tell us what to do, so we need your input to come up.  I have a couple of comments before that. 

            Community and what that means – what's a community?  Anybody want to take a crack at the definition of a 
            community?  Some people would think it is the infrastructure, the buildings and the roads, some people would
            want to say it's the businesses, but none of these things would exist without the people in the community.  A
            community is a group of people who work together for common goals.  Is everyone always going to agree with
            each other when defining the goals of the community?  No.  Of course they're not.  It's one of the things though
            that makes America what it is, the beautiful, wonderful compilation of everyone's ideas and dreams.  226 years
            ago this amazing social experiment began called the United States, and no one can dispute that no matter how
            you define success, the single most successful society ever created is ours.  So here's a question for you.  Are
            the needs of Connecticut the same as those of Southern California?  Clearly they're not, but I don't see the states
            at odds with each other in achieving their specific goals.  There are no civil wars going on between the states, it's
            been about 150 years since we had that.  The community of 50 states seems to coexist without any civil wars,
            (inaudible).  How about the needs of Bridgeport compared to the needs of Watertown?  Are they the same?  No,
            they're not, and again I don't see any intercity wars going on.  There may be inner city wars but there's no
            intercity wars going on.

            Now how about Watertown?  Let's take a look at ourselves for a minute.  Within Watertown and Oakville there
            are, I hate to say this but it begs saying, there are clearly citizens who have very different, wait a minute, within
            Watertown there are clearly citizens who have different needs and goals.  That's absolutely clear.  One family is
            concerned with their kid's education while another is trying to figure out how to mange their retirement income. 
            But do we coexist peacefully in the spirit of give and take?  Do we have the mentality that we can all come to an
            agreement on common issues for common good, the real definition of community?  I hate to say it but currently
            there are some of us in our community who have issues in this area.  Some of our citizens define themselves as
            (Tape #1, Side B ended – may have missed some).  Some of our citizens define themselves as retirees versus
            young families.  Oakville versus Watertown.  Last I checked we are one Town.  Oakville and Watertown are
            certainly different geographic areas, but the geographic differences (inaudible) make the people in them any
            different.  We're all members of the same community.  Blue Collar versus White Collar, parents of school children
            versus empty nesters, have's versus have not's, rich versus poor, you, me, us, them, where does it end?  How
            about black versus white?  (Inaudible) versus Pakistani or Arab versus Israeli?  Do we lob mortar shells at each
            other to solve our problems or talk about them in the interest of solving them?  Which would you rather do. 

            We are Watertown and everything that is Watertown is yours.  Whether you have children in the school system
            or not, it is your school system because you are a stakeholder in this community.  It's not that school thing over 
            there if you don't have kids in it.  It's yours.  You own it.  You're a stockholder in it.  Whether you use the parks or
            not, or use Parks and Recreation Programs or not, it's your Parks and Recreation Department and they're your
            parks.  You're a stakeholder in the community and those things belong to you.  All of the facilities, services, and
            amenities of our community and the quality of those have profound effects on your property and home values,
            whether you realize it or not.  I imagine for must of us our home is our biggest investment.  There is an old axiom
            about how you should live in the world and not on it.  The same is true here.  You don't just live here; you are a
            stakeholder in the value of the Town; you are a stockholder in Watertown.  As long as we define ourselves as 
            belonging to one group or another, as long as we remain fractured and splintered into opposing subgroups of our
            community, you know, Oakville versus Watertown, rich, poor, parents, non-parents of school children, as long as
            we fail to come together to solve our community problems as a group of active, constructive, committed citizens
            who are willing to work together to find solutions rather than throw rocks, we're not going to move forward and
            we're not going to solve our problems, and God help our poor little Town.  If you're only going to throw rocks and
            not become an active participant in finding solutions then you are a part of the problem.

            We'll have Public Participation next.  I'm not going to tell you what to say.  I'm no going to tell you what you can
            or can't say.  You have freedom of speech as everyone else does, but I would urge you to bring solutions or
            suggestions to the microphone, or at the very least constructive criticism.  Be part of the solution.  Thanks.

            Daniel Zuraitis, 8 Litchfield Road, Watertown, CT  06795

            Mr. Zuraitis:  I'm speaking just as a concerned citizen and a taxpayer.  The question has been asked, why raise
            taxes?  Many members of W.O.T.A. served on the Council and Boards of Education in this Town.  Many of us
            have been life long residents here in this Town.  The reason we raised taxes when we were on the Council, we
            raised taxes in line with the growth of the Grand List.  No more, no less.  We built schools, we built a lot of things
            on bonds.  We were responsible to the taxpayers in Town.  There are many people in Town that live on fixed
            incomes, very low pensions and very low Social Security payments.  These people are hurting in this economy. 
            We had a speaker up here that gave us all of the surrounding towns that had increased in excess of 4%, 8%,
            whatever, but he didn't tell us what local towns voted down the budget time after time, as we will have to do
            because we can't live within what we (inaudible).  Again this Council isn't the first Council in Town.  We've had
            many Councils since the 60's.  I don't think this Council has been responsible to this Town and to its taxpayers
            because they seem to ignore the Referendums. When we win by 850 votes that is a clear indication to cut, not to
            increase.  Thank you.

            Mr. Archer:  #1 and I think I'm going to ask for some help from Frank on this, the Grand List, I don't know if this was the case when you were on the Council, but the Grand List is only one source of revenue for the Town.  There has been a number of letters in the paper, again I don't remember who and it doesn't matter, well the Grand List went up so why do we need a tax increase?  Frank, if you could speak about that, we spoke about that this morning. 

            Mr. Nardelli:  Well of course the Grand List did go up and it generated approximately $1,000,000 in revenue, but that's just one revenue component, the total revenue of the General Fund.  The budget that went to Referendum, the State was cutting us over $300,000 so that $1,000,000 that we got on the Grand List, you lose $300,000 from the State.

            Mr. Archer:  So up in one column, down in another?

            Mr. Nardelli:  Exactly.  There's various revenue sources that you have to look at to make up the total revenue for the budget.  Also another item was the interest on investments that we're getting.  Our interest rates are just lower because of the investment environment at this particular time.  So you have to look at the total revenues of the budget.  Of course when the Grand List goes up, that extra money that we did (inaudible) the expenditure side also went up, so one balances against the other.

            Mr. Archer:  So I'm a homeowner and the value of my home, given the current real estate market, has certainly increased; everyone's has, which is a great thing.  On the flip side of that my 401K doesn't look so good.  Do you think that's a fair analogy?

            Mr. Nardelli:  Yes, you could use that as an analogy, but again as far as, the Grand List is only one component of the revenue source of the budget.  Like I said, when we went to Referendum on that, on the Governor's proposed budget, we were losing over $300,000 at that particular time.

            Mr. Archer:  The second thing Mr. Zuraitis raised at the podium is that we're not listening. I'm standing here, the
            mike's open.  It was defeated at Referendum.  I want to know why.  I want to know specifics.  What do you want
            cut?  Scott went through, I don't know, a couple of hundred line items.  Which ones don't we want?  If you want 
            the voice and you have the absolute right to it, we're here offering it to you.  And you're shaking your head, so I
            don't know . . . .

            Mr. Zuraitis:  May I respond?

            Mr. Archer:  Can I . . . . .

            Mr. Zuraitis:  Both are questions to my comments.  May I respond? 

            Mr. Archer:  Sure, I think at the end of it, yes, I think everyone should have a chance to speak first.  Can everyone raise their hands as to how many people want to speak.  Okay, it's open mike, fire away.

            John Bieler, 97 Highland Avenue, Watertown, CT  06795

            Mr. Bieler:  I try very hard to be quiet, but there's at least one person in the audience that knows I can't do that.  The professional services – I'm a fan of Hockey and it bothers me every year to see that we're going to cut money from Hockey, and we say (inaudible) going up for whatever and I would suggest perhaps we also have to do it in the (inaudible) cost to maintain the football field, the swimming pool, the gymnasium, and I think we have to (inaudible) at those places also, so let's not lay the burden there.

            The other issue is for 14 or 15 years I was a member of the Board of Education, Chairman for a few years, troublemaker for all those years, I hope, but more importantly I never ever forgot what is really happening.  When I hear anybody come up and say to you well I've been a lifelong resident of this Town, and I don't want to get into that too deeply, but there are some of us who are here because we chose to be here.  I do have a child who is a lifelong resident of this Town and is proud that he is, but my point however is that I have not been in this building probably for 7 years, and it's interesting how much things that do change, they stay the same.  What has happened here has gotten worse.  It's despicable.  This is the Living Room of our Town and what we seem to do is every year we say well let's really do stuff to make it better, and we end up where we get nickel and diming, and more importantly there's a pride factor.

            Now those people who categorically say well let's not do this, this room should be full.  We have people in this Town who are always complaining about we don't have good road, we don't' have everything, and so how do we really pay for it?  We pay for it, I hope, by people who are proud of the Town, they want people to live here, we want to feel good about what we do.  When I hear the name W.O.T.A. I cannot help but get really frustrated.  Here is a group that could probably be the most positive contributions to our Town and instead they chose to be snipers, they chose to be condemning, they chose to really say absolutely no budget increase.

            I had an occasion two evenings ago where we talk about what do we really want in our town.  We want a group of people who really bond together for the pride of the Town, (inaudible) safety educating our children.  Now what has happened two evenings ago my wife woke me up at 11:30 and said you've got to see this.  There was a Police car in my driveway, and a Police car across the street.  I've never seen trouble in the neighborhood.  But what we have where people are willing to come out and make sure that we were safe.  I was certainly sleeping before, I certainly slept a little bit better. 

            Now you're asking for suggestions of what we can do.  I am familiar with the Anthem fund and how the money is distributed.  The $400,000 you were talking about, what if you were to take the money out of the Fund Balance and whatever, and if in fact in the future you're able you keep that money for Watertown it can be replaced, if not, I think you've answered a couple of your critics by saying okay we're going to tap into that, but you also (inaudible) the formula of how much money you have to have or whatever, or if you can even touch it, but somehow something has to give.

            I also need to tell you with all the dialogue that I've been hearing, one of the things that continues to disturb me is
            when people say they don't understand why we're paying our teachers so much or whatever, they just do not
            understand the process.  If I'm part of a bargaining unit and I sit down and I agree to what is happening, then
            every year there are increases.  There are increases beyond our control because in good faith we have a contract.
            Now I'm facing in October, I'm going to be one of those retired people.  I'm also going to probably suffer a 2/3 drop
            in my income.  That's the way the world works.  But I would like to think that I would stand in front of you, that I
            would never forget what this Town has done for me and my children, so all of the negative factors, that a .9%
            increase sucks, that's a Connecticut word, because I moved in from some place else I know that, but it truly
            does, so what we are really doing is look around the room at all the empty chairs.  What would happen if you did
            nothing, and you went back to Referendum?  We have people in back of me who would scream and shout, and
            I'm embarrassed for them because they've had their life, whatever it was.  I will have mine, whatever it is, but we
            cannot simply ignore our children, our Town.

            More importantly when I was doing what you guys are doing, I walked away from it for a lot of reasons, but 
            importantly why do people do what you do?  Why do you really put yourself on a stage, why do you really put
            yourself in front of the public, become criticized, told you don't care, and more importantly, this is a good thing for
            W.O.T.A.  I sat at a table for years and never saw anybody come to a Board of Ed meeting.  I don't ever see
            anybody become part of the process from that organization and say I think I'll run for office and see how things 
            run from the inside.  I frankly don't think that they have the courage to do that.  I also believe that what you're
            trying to do this evening is wake people up.  When I drove by here I said my God, I'm not going to get a place to
            sit.  I saw all of the cars, and I said where am I going to park.  It's going to be crowded.  But what really was
            happening was there was a ball game and all of the people were where they needed to be.  They were with their
            families because they trusted you folks enough to really do things right, so I think the real bottom line here is we
            can have anything we want, but the community has to support it. Why don't people vote?  Who knows?  All of the
            other peripheral things that distract us are very sad, but more importantly I, for one, am very proud to be here, and
            thank you all so very much for the hard work you do for us. 

            Bob (Inaudible) Oakville, CT  06779

            Mr. (Inaudible):  The Town hasn't done anything for the (inaudible).  I've lived in this Town over 50 years.  We built Polk School, we built the High School, the Junior High School, the Police Department and now we're hanging by our fingernails and they say so what?  The Town didn't do anything for you, the people in it did, and we (inaudible) people and we've been doing that for the last 50, 60 years.  That's all I got to say.

            Frank McHale, 7 Mango Circle, Oakville, CT  06779

            Mr. McHale:  I'm the Chairman of the Watertown/Oakville Taxpayer's Association, Board of Directors.  The Watertown/Oakville Taxpayer's Association is requesting that this Republican controlled Council return with a no tax increase in the next budget Referendum on July 30, 2002.  W.O.T.A. feels justified in asking for this because there is a Fund Balance of approximately $3,000,000.  We feel this represents over taxation over the past few years.  At this time W.O.T.A. will oppose any tax increase.  W.O.T.A. is also requesting a copy of the Minutes of this meeting, during Public Participation until the end of the meeting.  We are not asking for the presentation.  What they're not telling you here is in the past 13 or 14 months your taxes went up a little over 3 mills.  If this budget passes, .9 we have a Fund Balance of over $3,000,000.  We've been overtaxed and there's no need for a tax increase.  That's W.O.T.A.'s position.

            Now I'd like to get back to Mr. Bieler.  Mr. Bieler never did like W.O.T.A.  W.O.T.A. has been organized for the past 12 years and the reason W.O.T.A. has been organized is the revaluation in 1990 and 1991, the mill rate went up 3.5 times and W.O.T.A. organized and brought the mill rate down, what 2 mills with 5 Referendums, and thank God we got W.O.T.A. in this Town.  We are not critics like Mr. Bieler claims.  I'd like to ask Mr. Bieler one question.

            Mr. Archer:  This is not the forum for discussing things.

            Unidentified Person in Audience:  (Inaudible)

            Mr. McHale:  Well he got up and I think we have a chance to, we should have the opportunity to rebuttal Mr. Bieler's remarks.

            Mr. Archer:  Fire away, go ahead.

            Mr. McHale:  Please don't interrupt me.  I know that you've got Town employees and school employees in here but we do have a few W.O.T.A. people here.  Mr. Bieler, I'd like to ask you this question.  You don't believe in W.O.T.A.  Do you believe in the money that W.O.T.A. saved you?  Did you run to the bank with it or did you return it to the Town? That's my question to you, and from here on in I would appreciate it if you would honor W.O.T.A.  Thank God we have W.O.T.A. in this Town.  Thank you. 

            Enrico Rinaldi, 25 Saunders Avenue, Oakville, CT  06779

            Mr. Rinaldi:  I moved in this Town about 30 or 35 years ago.  It was a great town, believe me.  Now they say the
            Police Department needs new cars.  (Inaudible).  They need them, give it to them.  The Fire Department, if they
            need it, give it to them.  That's what we need. If we need those things, give it to them.  Board of Education – I
            always said it.  I will repeat.  I hate the word when they turn around and say we have to take the sports away from
            kids.  There's no money for the kids to play sports, but there's money to give the teachers' raises.  There's money
            there, right?  Nobody can answer that.

            Mr. Archer:  Right now I'm listening.

            Mr. Rinaldi:  Why do they have to take sports things away from the kids?  Now I think on the Board of Education, maybe I'm wrong, if I'm wrong I will apologize, but anybody who belongs on the Board of Education, they shouldn't be teachers.  They shouldn't be on the Board.  They should be off the teachers.  There's another thing – last week I was sitting in my back yard and these dogs in the back of my house, all through the street there, barking like crazy.

            Mr. Archer:  Sir, you've come before the Council before and talked about the dogs.

            Mr. Rinaldi:  You're right, but I will repeat that.

            Mr. Archer:  If we could keep the comments germane to the topic tonight which is the budget, cause there are other people who want to speak.

            Mr. Rinaldi:  Okay about the budget – Now this is a Town that needs a new backhoe, the school needs new things, the truck and everything.  How come we've got these contractors that do some of that work in Town?  If we have contractors why do we need this equipment?  We have private contractors doing the work.  I'm still waiting on Saunders Avenue to take care of a tree for 3 years, the Town, and you tell me the Town does something for us.  I appreciate they do; I'm not saying they don't.  The streets are terrible, all the money (inaudible) I'm talking as a taxpayer.  I don't think it's proper to keep raising taxes on these people.  Now they say if you make $30,000 we're giving you a cut on your wage, if you're retired people and this and that, but at the same time, I would still say now same thing, I just took a walk at the field here.  They said the truck needs new things done.

            How about the schools?  The Board of Education they don't (inaudible) right for the schools for some reason or another.  The roofs are leaking.  Somebody has to be after these contractors that built these things and nobody (inaudible).  The school up there, the things are falling off already, so what did the Board of Education do?  They just pay out money, they don't care where our money is going?  (Inaudible) right or wrong?  They don't keep the schools up. 

            The Board of Education they (inaudible) schools.  (Inaudible).  Maybe 5 or 6 years they were supposed to fix the bricks, that's not been done.  Where is the money gong?  They say no money, no money, but I think something is wrong somewhere down the line, but not take care of the schools.  I think the seats over here maybe they did fix some, after 4 or 5 years they kept asking that.  The ceilings over here, look at them.  Do they take care of the schools?  I don't know if they have enough custodians or if they just clean up.  They don't take care of the rest of it.  Next time we have a meeting and I hear that again from the Board of Education cut the budget for the sports, I be certified and I'm going to say cut the teacher's pay damn it.  Don't cut the sports on kids.  You never hear cut the teacher's pay.  The teachers say if we get more money we'll do better teaching.  I don't think so.  They're professionals.  We're professionals in our own work.  Could I go to my boss and say if you give me $10 more I'll do a better job?  That would be the same thing.  But that's what they're talking about.  I don't think so.  If that's the thing, the issue of giving them more money, that they would be better teachers, I would go out and borrow money from somebody somehow to educate my grandchildren for the money to make them a genius.  I will do that.  Thank you.

            Susan Gillespie, 210 French Street, Watertown, CT  06795

            Ms. Gillespie:  I try to come to every budget meeting.  I did miss the last one, however, but the most recent one I was at, I asked questions and other people had asked questions about the consolidation of that health care plan in an attempt to try and save on administrative costs and premium cuts.  If I remember correctly, this is where I'm looking for clarification, the reason that they couldn't consolidate was because of the different terms of the Union contracts.  I was wondering if anybody has looked into that, or if that was set in stone, or if anybody sees that as a possibility, a way of saving administrative costs on medical benefits?

            Mr. Frigon:  Yes, there are certainly some contractual benefits that we do honor in terms of medical converge.  We do, however, strive and we continue to work towards getting each of those bargaining units benefits the same so that is something that we do work towards.

            Ms. Gillespie:  I think maybe you misunderstood my question.  I'm not so much concerned about how much benefits are being paid out, but I think, and from a practical standpoint, that if everybody is insured by the same insurer, and I'm guessing it's Anthem since we brought that up, that if we were all paid on the same schedule, that we would save some administrative costs instead . . . . it was my understanding that wasn't happening, that because contracts started and ended at different times, that we could not take advantage of the total number of enrollees.

            Mr. Frigon:  I don't believe that would make a difference, but I'll certainly look into it. 

            Ms. Gillespie:  I‘ve never really been clear on the answer; it didn't make sense to me at the time.

            Mr. Frigon:  I don't believe so, but I'll certainly look into it.

            Ms. Gillespie:  Also, you talked about the salary increases and the negotiations and beyond our control is what I heard.  I'm a member of the Connecticut State Employees AFSME Local 269 and I'm very proud of it.  I went 4 years without a salary increase because the State couldn't afford it.  Do I want that necessarily to happen to anybody else?  Of course not, but if you can't afford it, you can't afford it.  What I heard in this room was that beyond our control was that every time that it's built into the contract.  I have to tell you that it's not.  If it's negotiated it's not a given, that's why it's negotiated.  And if the Town can't afford it, then they need to negotiate that position.  What is the salary increase, if I might ask, on both side of the budget?

            Mr. Archer:  The Town's Side?

            Mr. Frigon:  Each Union is different.

            Ms. Gillespie:  Do you have an average?

            Mr. Frigon:  let's say 3%.

            Ms. Gillespie:  What is the term of the contract?

            Mr. Frigon:  Generally 3 years; some are 4.  The Teacher's Union is presently under negotiations and I believe just to clarify this, the comment made that the costs are fixed, they're fixed once the contract is signed.

            Ms. Gillespie:  Okay, so if you have a contract open to negotiations now you would have an opportunity to . . . .

            Mr. Frigon:  Absolutely.  That contract is negotiated for the next 3 years.

            Ms. Gillespie:  I just want to make sure that we're clear on this.  It is not beyond your control.  It is well within your control, the amount of the increase, or to provide none if the Town can't afford it.

            Mr. Frigon:  That's correct.

            Mr. Archer:  At the time of negotiations.

            Ms. Gillespie:  Correct.  Not that I would necessarily advocate this, but contracts have been reopened also when . . . . also on the Anthem issue, being a member of my Union I know that the 40,000 State employees are fighting to get those benefits for us as individuals, so I wouldn't spend the money too soon, because if one Union wins it, it will pretty much set a precedent across the Board for others, so I'd be really careful on taking Blumenthal's word for it at this time, cause we're pretty strong.  Thank you.  (Tape #2, Side A ended – may have missed some.) 

            Bruce Brooks, Bayview Circle, Watertown, CT  06799

            Mr. Brooks:  This is the first time that I've been to one of these meetings.  I guess I'm a member of the silent minority up until now.  I moved to Watertown by choice. I wasn't born here, but I picked Watertown because they have good schools, low taxes, and compared to the surrounding communities (inaudible) so I chose to live here and I've been here about 10 years.  In the last few years I've seen a lot of fighting and a lot of Referendums budgets turned down.  I have 2 kids in the school system.  Most of the teachers they've had have been excellent, terrific teachers, but I also look at the budget that was handed out tonight, I hear a presentation of what's being cut, round figures about 70% of your budget is spent on salaries and benefits.  Why is that 70% immune from all cuts?  All of the cuts are being made out of 30% of your budget.  You're taking a lot of cuts out of maintenance.  I can't believe you can't find a couple of bucks for ceiling tiles in a $25,000,000 budget.  Why is the increases in the salaries sacrosanct?  Where I work it's a Union environment.  When times are tough, things are slow, people get laid off.  You don't carry people and you don't increase their salary, and you don't increase your budgets every year in the face of declining business.  That's part of managing a business.  Over the years you have to budget to maintain the buildings and facilities.  I see in Watertown all of a sudden you need roofs on 3 schools and you don't have the money to do that.  You have to bond that and pay for it for 30 years.  You're already paying for that school for 30 years.  You've been budgeting supposedly to maintain those buildings since they were built, now you're carrying an additional cot which further increases your taxes.  You need Police, cars, teachers, buildings, the purpose of the education budget is to teach kids.  Salary increases, benefit increases, $156,000 for call in to cover absenteeism.  That's not teaching kids.  If you have an absentee problem you deal with it.  That's it.  Thanks.

            Tony Recchia, Oakville, CT  06779

            Mr. Recchia:  I was on the Council for 4 years and I sat there so I sympathize with you.  I've had the pleasure with working with the people up on the stage and putting a budget together.  People who were never involved – it's a lot of work.  A lot of sleepless nights making decisions on how this is going to affect your kids and your community.  Where do I cut?  What's the impact?  You have a tough job, but I think what basically here is a total lack of respect for the Council, for the Board of Ed, and for W.O.T.A. 

            We're all citizens here.  We have the right to express our opinion, but I think there has to be mutual respect.  When I was Finance Chairman I met with Mr. McHale.  He's a gentleman and we agreed that we weren't going to agree, but there was middle road.  Did Referendums get defeated?  Absolutely, but we had dialogue and I think it has to stop (inaudible).  Let's just get down to what's good for the Town.  I think we need to change our thinking.  You are the Board of Directors of a multimillion dollar corporation and we have to run it as such.  Sometimes the corporation's pockets are empty.  My corporation is going through some bad times right now, and sorry guys, you have to do what you have to do.  There are tough decisions that have to be made, and I think one of the scenarios (inaudible) we're hearing a zero increase. I think you should have laid that out, what was going to be the impact.  We're not going to get, this, this, this.  If I really, we probably have the same amount of Police Officers that we did about 10 years ago.  We're definitely understaffed our public service here.  Our Police Department does one hell of a job.  For people who don't know, we are getting one heck of a bargain with our Fire Department.  We have about 100 citizens here that really give of their time, and get away from their families and put their lives on the line.  They say well I'm volunteering.  Well you know the saying goes, when people are running out of buildings, they're running in.  That is a bargain, our Fire Department.  If we had a paid Fire Department we'd be talking a 5 to 6 mill increase, so if that's what we want.

            I really think we need to pull in ranks to see what we need to do.  In working with Mr. Nardelli and Mr. Frigon, they do not waste tax dollars.  They look where they can cut, and do the best they can with the resources, but I think we need to pull together and see what we need to do.  That's it.

            Kevin Blotch, 431 Winding Brook Farm Road, Watertown, CT  06795

            Mr. Blotch:  This is my first attendance at a Budget Meeting in Watertown.  My family moved to Watertown from
            Waterbury in 1991, approximately 12 years ago, and at the time the Town was terrific.  It was full of hope; it has a
            great educational system.  The people seemed to care to take pride in the Town, and I regret to say that at age
            20 I'm the youngest person in this room.  I'm currently a Junior at Central Connecticut State University and when I
            graduate from school, at this point I cannot see any conceivable reason why I would return to Watertown to live.  I
            ask myself the questions, do I want to raise a family in a school system where people are apathetic and we have
            consistently a 25% to 30% voter turnout for budgets?  There's a problem there.  It's not W.O.T.A., cause
            W.O.T.A. votes.  It's the remainder of the Town.  People have to start asking the question why are only 27% or
            28% of the people voting on the Referendums?  Where are the rest of the people in this Town?  Where are they? 
            A lot of it has to do with the fact that the Town has grown a lot and we have had the same form of government in
            this Town for too long, and I believe our Town population is almost 22,000 now? 

            Mr. Archer:  Correct.

            Mr. Blotch:  Most towns with our size have at the very least a First Selectman form of government.  Some towns with our population have a mayoral form of government.  Perhaps we should start discussing the possibility of having a Referendum to change our form of government in Town.  I think it would be a good idea if we had a mayor, because like Chairman Archer has brought up, we're divided.  It's always Oakville versus Watertown, W.O.T.A. versus the school system.  Now I think if we had a centralized government, a leader, someone that we could look up to to provide leadership in this Town, people would be able to go there with their complaints, concerns, criticisms.  I think it would be very beneficial for this Town.  Now I also am a prospective educator and I've been doing research and I found that in the greater Waterbury area, Watertown pays the lowest starting salary for a person who graduates with a 4 year Bachelor's Degree.  I think this is absolutely pathetic.  And yes, we're losing all of our good teachers to other school systems.  Most people come into this school system to use it as a stepping to go to higher things.  We hire these teachers, they come in for 2 years, they do a good job, and then they leave to go to other school systems.  We ask the question, well why can't we keep them?  It's because we don't pay them competitive salaries.  People just don't understand that you need to pay people.  If you want quality work you have to pay for it.  That's not just true of teachers; that's true of any profession.

            I guess my point is that we have to stop being apathetic in this Town.  Yes, there is a marketable improvement.  I
            guess there's about 60 people here from the last session when there were, but that's still not enough.  There's
            22,000 people in this Town; there's only 60 people here voicing their opinions.  That's ridiculous.  We need to
            change the way we do things; we need leadership, we need to build a community.  I come from Waterbury and
            Waterbury has its problems, it's $85,000,000 in the hole, but in many ways it's ahead of Watertown because it's
            united.  It has a concessive community.  People care.  We need to start doing that in Watertown.  I think that's
            the main thing.  We shouldn't be quibbling over money; we should be quibbling over how we can provide
            leadership and get people to take an interest in this Town.  I think once we do that this Town will be on the road
            to recovery.  Thanks.

            Lori Lacaria, 163 Oak Drive, Watertown, CT  06795

            Ms. Lacaria:  My first time up here.  I'd like to first compliment Mr. Archer and the Committee for having this open forum.  I don't know how many times, have you've done this before in the past?  All of the time, every time you've had a Referendum?

            Mr. Archer:  Every time there is a pending budget there is this forum. 

            Ms. Lacaria:  Okay, good.  I agree with . . . . I'm a parent of 3, I'm a taxpayer like everyone else in the room.  I
            would like to see that we do come together.  I have noted a few interesting things.  The gentlemen that came up
            and complained from W.O.T.A., and I have nothing personally against them, but I'm surprised that they're not
            staying to hear the rest of the information that people have to give and the suggestions that they're giving.  I think 
            it's important for all of us to find out the facts, and I think the gentleman, the young man who's had some very
            interesting insights, being 20 years old and having some observations that, as a parent of young children, that's
            one thing I've noticed, is that the parents aren't out here voting and hearing these cuts.

            I'm also a proponent of your educational system.  I have been transferred from Waterbury to Watertown about 4
            year ago and just changed my kids from parochial school in this Town to the public school and have been
            incredibly satisfied and very impressed with the quality of our educational system.  If you don't believe that you
            need to see what I've seen in some of the private sector and from Waterbury cause my children were in early
            childhood education in Waterbury.  That comes with a cost.  There is quality teacher education.

            I'm a physical therapist.  I have to take continuing education courses all the time.  I have to know about
            technology.  I deal with the older sect as well as the younger children.  I hear what the elderly are saying and
            they're needs. I also note that the elderly were once young and we're at some point going to be older God willing,
            so we all have the same progression hopefully.  WE are trying to understand both sides of the story, but I think
            we need to be realistic.  Everything costs more each year.  Also education, the gentleman also said he was part
            of the Board of Ed in the (inaudible).  If I understand correctly, did he say they only raised the taxes according to
            cost of living?

            Mr. Archer:  He was on the Council and he said they only raised the mill rate according to the increase in the Grand list, correct.

            Ms. Lacaria:  Okay, (inaudible) taxpayer (inaudible). Is that what the Grand List includes?

            Mr. Archer:  The Grand List is taxation on properties, essentially, properties, business, capital equipment.

            Ms. Lacaria: I guess what I'm trying to understand is I think that when I was in education 20 years ago when I
            was a student, the technology system was nowhere near what it is today; it's costly.  It's updated, it's fast, we
            have information, it costs money.  These teachers that are teaching right now, to be quality teachers, they have 
            to understand the child's psyche, they have to constantly go to continuing education, (inaudible) learning. When
            they leave you think they have a 6 hours day, but they go home and correct our papers and if they are teachers
            with a conscience, which is what I've seen, and I'm just impressed with that, they will (inaudible) work on
            themselves, they will be doing papers at night regardless, even though the class sizes are way too much, but
            they're going to decrease that if they are overwhelmed with too many jobs, so I think that we need to respect the
            High School's request for teachers.

            The High School is a very detrimental time in children's lives.  We need teacher and student ratios to be
            comparable.  These smaller class sizes are going to (inaudible) individualized help.  If we don't do that in the
            primary classes, we're going to find that we're going to need resources and have to pay for it in the long run when
            these kids are older.  Don't people realize that we have to pay for things now for quality care or else we're going to
            pay for it in the end.  You know when you buy something cheap, you end up having to replace it over and over 
            again.

            Sue Gillespie has a very interesting point – I congratulate her for getting up here and giving you suggestions and
            asking you questions and having you respond.  I think that's another thing we want to find out, what the City
            people are concerned about and want to know how we can direct this.  I'm all for education, but someone also
            brought up in education that do we have to consider our educator's contracts in order to help out fiscal plan?  I
            see the construction projects being really less and less and cut out more . . . . I'm amazed at all the things you
            have to cut.  I would like you to go back to this Referendum.  I agree with the gentleman, the second gentleman
            who spoke, Mr. Bieler, in that you may have to realize that you have to do some increase in order to
            accommodate the needs, but getting some people's suggestions, finding but, checking out the information she
            gave you to see and also getting it out in the paper so parents can read this information.  What are we really 
            talking about?  We really don't know about it until it comes down to a very personal level, bussing is going to be
            taken away or sports are going to be taken away, so I think that we have to find a way to really inform the
            people.  Get it out there.  I understand, can you use, what do you use as a means of letting people know exactly
            all this stuff?  Just these meetings, correct?  How much in the paper?

            Mr. Archer:  This is actually the only forum that we have.  We have to trust the people in the media and the two papers, the Waterbury Republican American and the Town Times to report this stuff accurately.  The Town Times also devotes some space before each budget Referendum to print the numbers, but not any of what's behind the numbers, and that's a problem.  There are not a lot of outlets other than this for us to explain what the budget is composed of and for people . . . . . 

            Unidentified Person In Audience:  Web Site?

            Mr. Archer:  Yes, the web site, Chuck has been doing a tremendous amount of work on getting us a better and
            more comprehensive web site and it's coming along very very well.  I would ask anyone who is interested to
            check it out.  It's watertownct.org and it's come a long way in a very short period of time.  It's something we
            funded back in January and that's probably the best place for us to put the most comprehensive information.  For
            example the slide presentation is in PowerPoint and it can easily be added to the web site for anybody to view.

            Ms. Lacaria:  Will that be done?

            Mr. Archer:  Yes, we'd like to do that.

            Ms. Lacaria:  That's a good suggestion.  Again, something out there in the paper that says we have this web site, go to it.  If you can't make this meeting, go to the web site and you will find a detailed . . . . I realize that takes time.

            Mr. Archer:  Well actually the Minutes of every meeting, including in the future this one, are on the web site.  That is verbatim, word for word Minutes of the meeting.

            Ms. Lacaria:  Also is there a way for you to (inaudible)?  Take it right from a parent of 3.  It is hard for us to keep up with what's going on and be there.  I felt that there should be a way in the school system to remind people about votes and these kinds of things coming up.  Is that way off track?  Is there a way that we can, I understand you're not supposed to use public money (inaudible), however this is a public issue.

            Mr. Archer:  There has been some controversy about that in the past.  If I'm not mistaken public money cannot be used to tell people how to vote, but to inform them of a vote can be done, but there are some issues with it going through the school system.  I know about a year ago this problem reared its head and maybe I need to spend some time looking into that.

            Ms. Lacaria:  I'm just wondering about that, because I think that consistently once I got my interest up in this,
            I've been asking a lot of parents of children, because that's who I'm around, why they're not out there.  Some 
            (inaudible) don't know all the issues.  They inflate it right from the start so people wait for the Referendum, it
            sounds like W.O.T.A. had a theory of let me see how many times we can put down and defeat a Referendum.  Is
            that what we're really here for, to defeat a Referendum?  Or are we here to try and understand the cost of living,
            everybody has it.  We need to understand that there's going to be an increase and I don't understand why we're
            constantly fighting, and the man who asked about this $3,000,000 Fund. 

            Mr. Archer:  The Fund Balance.

            Ms. Lacaria:  He did ask you what that is about.

            Mr. Archer:  I'll explain that a little more.

            Ms. Lacaria:  Thank you for your time.

            Mr. Rinaldi:  When my children were going through the school system, various issues would come up and the
            school at that time would send home a notice with my daughter which didn't really offend me, but just for your
            information, people get awfully offended.  They viewed it as political, as not appropriate for the school to do.  Not
            just the school, anything that's viewed as a form of Town Agency or Town Commission or school system, you're
            not supposed to be getting involved with that.

            Ms. Lacaria:  Who didn't want it?  I mean what would, that would just be a form of letting them know there's a vote, just like putting in the paper.  Are you saying that because it's at the school that's considered the wrong thing to do?  I just think parents need a lot of reminders, I'm sorry.

            Mr. Rinaldi:  I agree, but if someone sends a notice home with your kids that says don't forget to vote on the budget, blah, blah such a date, you start coming to some of these meetings and you'll see what I'm talking about.  A lot of people are going to be offended and it's going to bring out a side of them that you don't want to see.  They're going to say it's not appropriate for the schools to do this.  You may not have a problem with it, and I don't, but people will.

            Mr. Archer:  The only issue – one thing that sort of jumps out after thinking a couple of minutes while Paul was talking is that if you're sending home notices with the kids in the schools, you're only hitting a segment of the population, and so you're informing a sector instead of the whole population as a whole.  That's the only thing I can see as a primary issue, well it's not cool.  Everybody should be treated the same.

            Mr. Frigon:  On our web site there is a section, and right now it does not include special meetings and public meetings, however you can in the very near future sign up to be notified for special meetings.  When it posts to our calendar, and our calendar is on line, it will also notify you via email that there's a special meeting.  Whether or not you choose to attend is up to you.

            Ms. Lacaria:  How can you do that? 

            Mr. Frigon:  It's not in place yet.  It will be soon.  There are some areas that you can sign up for now; school cancellations.  If school is cancelled you can go right to your web site and check it out.  It will notify you via email and also special meeting notices will be posted.

            Ms. Lacaria:  Okay, but you're projecting this might come soon and the way we will  know about this is . . . . . .

            Mr. Frigon:  You will be notified via email if you sign up for it.

            Ms. Lacaria:  But to let the general public know that there's going to be a signup eventually, can you put that into the Town Times so people are informed?

            Mr. Frigon:  (Inaudible) it's not something that I was looking to spend a lot of money.

            Mr. Archer:  It's something definitely worthy of a press release, yea, that we would give to the papers and then it
            would be their job to report on it.  We can't make them, but I would imagine they would want to.  So at that time I
            would think as new features come on line, I would think a press release is something we could do to the two 
            papers of record there.

            Ms. Lacaria:  What I'm trying to say is that we have to go from the very basic how do we get the basics of telling people, informing people?  You said that you have to count on the newspaper to hope they will write this.  Can you not ask the newspaper to meet with you and be interviewed and give them your side of things and let them know what's going on?

            Mr. Archer:  Sure, 99% of the times that we tell them about (inaudible) they do respond in that way.

            Ms. Lacaria:  That's the only way?

            Mr. Archer:  Yes.

            Ms. Lacaria:  A big ad you can't do?  An ad from . . . .

            Mr. Archer:  Actually no.  There was an advertisement (inaudible) about 1/3 of a page for this meeting tonight.

            Ms. Lacaria:  Thank you for your efforts, all of you.  Thank you.

            Unidentified Person in the Audience:  What about the Fund money? 

            Mr. Archer:  Yes, I did want to mention the Fund Balance.  Mr. McHale mentioned the Fund Balance.  Just for the record I have no animosity towards Mr. McHale or anyone in W.O.T.A. either.  In fact I've actually spent a great deal of time, not so much with Mr. McHale, but with Mr. Walton of W.O.T.A. discussing at great length many of the issues in Town.  We don't always agree on things; we agree that we can disagree.  Mr. Walton was a classmate of my father's in High School and we have a bit of a friendship going.  So no animosity about W.O.T.A. or any members of it on my part, certainly.

            Fund Balance – Mr. McHale brought up the Fund Balance, and Frank, I may ask you a series of questions (inaudible) asked you a couple of weeks ago.  The purpose of the Fund Balance, if you would?

            Mr. Nardelli:  Well first off the State likes to see you in the 5% to 8% range of your budget.  Currently our Fund Balance is approximately $3,000,000.  We haven't closed out the fiscal year yet so obviously we don't have the final audited numbers.  When you go out for bonding the financial institutions look to see the financial stability of the Town.  If you don't have a Fund Balance or net worth, these financial institutions will not bid on Watertown bonds.  Our financial advisors obviously tell us you have to have a Fund Balance, and the Fund Balance is our cash flow.  I mean if you have no money in the savings account or in the checking account, we don't have the cash flow to meet our obligations so we need the Fund Balance again in the 5% to 8% just to have some cash flow, to have some financial stability.  So we don't want to be in a Waterbury situation where you're in a deficit because that's, the State will then come in because the State reviews all of our audit reports, and if they see that you're heading in that direction, they will come in and look at our books and want to know what our problem is.

            Mr. Archer:  I think there are 160 some odd towns in Connecticut . . . .

            Mr. Frigon:  169.

            Mr. Archer:  How many of them maintain a Fund Balance.

            Mr. Nardelli:  Just about all of them do except maybe Waterbury or Bridgeport who are in a deficit situation.

            Mr. Archer:  Does that help to explain what the Fund Balance is for anyone who might have had a question on
            that? 

            Joe Cefaretti, Oakville, CT  06779

            Mr. Cefaretti:  I've lived in this Town for 35 years.  Of course as you well know I'm a senior citizen.  While we have my buddy Frank here, available, I've asked this question before.  He's saying that it's a requirement to make our bonding program feasible, we should have 5% to 8% factor, but I find that we have a very good credit rating and I don't think he would, (inaudible) substantiate that because the last bonding that I know we got was 4.6, wasn't that it Frank?

            Mr. Nardelli:  Yes, approximately.  We get the good bond rating because we do have a Fund Balance.

            Mr. Cefaretti:  It was 4.6, right, wasn't that the last one you gave me.

            Mr. Nardelli:  Yes, that was the last, we're going for bonding again next month, we're preparing all of the   documents now and obviously one of the things that financial institutions are going to be looking at is our Fund Balance.

            Mr. Cefaretti:  Was that 4.6 the bonding of the new school, John Trumbull?

            Mr. Nardelli:  Yes, that was on the new school.

            Mr. Cefaretti:  It was 4.6?

            Mr. Nardelli:  Right now we have a lot of Bond Anticipation Notes which are short term notes that are renewing
            every year until the projects are completed.  Once the projects are completed we'll go for permanent bonding. 
            Right now the Bond Anticipation Note interest rate is like 1.5% to 2%, it's very low because it's a short term rate,
            but again the document we put together is called the official statement, that has all the demographics of the
            Town, all of the financial data of the Town, including the fund balance, that financial institutions will look at before
            they actually bid on a Watertown bond, and obviously the stronger we are financially the lower the interest rate
            the Town will have to pay.

            Mr. Cefaretti:  Non-Certified staff increases, it has to do with custodial maintenance.  Now they're hiring a floater custodian at $15.63 an hour.  To me that's a ridiculous amount.  I can't see paying that.  It's just working as a janitor, or what is he, a maintenance engineer or something?  $15.63 an hour is ridiculous.  Is he Unionized?

            Mr. Baclawski:  Yes, he'll come in and be part of the Union, yes. 

            Mr. Cefaretti:  Well I was on salary and 12 years ago I came out of there for $11.50 an hour and I had a degree, so you figure it out.  How does this person warrant $15.63?  He can be a dropout for all I know.  I don't want to be insulting but that's the way I look at it and that's the way I feel about it.  Now the John Trumbull School – you wonder why I get aggravated.  I get very frustrated when I see (inaudible) what is being done in this Town.  We got a $20,000,000 school, or $22,000,000?

            Mr. Frigon:  $22,000,000.

            Mr. Cefaretti:  Okay, $22,000,000 that we'll be paying for 20 years and it's literally falling apart.  The school hasn't even been there 2 years (Tape #2, Side B ended – may have missed some). And it's strictly an (inaudible) crash site as far as I'm concerned.

            Mr. Archer:  Can we keep the discussion germane to the budget specifically.

            Mr. Cefaretti:  Well that is part of the budget, cause we're paying on it, we'll be paying for 20 years, it is part of the budget, and somebody didn't do their job well.  The committee, what do you call it?

            Mr. Archer:  I had a septic field installed in my yard a couple of years ago and it took one full year to get back to
            a Winter to see that the Spring and Fall left a puddle in part of my yard and so should I not have paid for that?  I
            didn't go to the guy and go screaming and yelling at him.  I told him about the problem and he came out and fixed
            it.  That's the process that goes through in most construction.  There are some issues that have to be repaired, 
            particularly an architectural design that had not been done before, it hadn't been . .

            Mr. Cefaretti:  Fixed, have they?

            Mr. Archer:  Well we're in the process of doing that.

            Mr. Cefaretti:  I was at a meeting about 6 months ago and it's still, (inaudible) they're not doing anything as far as I know.

            Mr. Archer:  Well I was there today and the idea that the building is about to collapse or fall down, or falling apart is just kind of, I think it's an overstatement at best. 

            Mr. Cefaretti:  I had something written here and the reason why I decided, why I'm against the budget as it stands . . . . . undeniably the education of our youth today has a profound impact on our community's future.  The various factions in towns, whether it's students, parents, seniors must attain a certain degree of satisfaction with the Town's annual spending policies to meet its financial obligations.  We all know this.  If you don't look out for yourself, who will?  If you think you can find security in these days of uncertainty working for a large corporation until retirements, just look at these alarming facts, with the companies like Enron.  One of the largest energy companies in the world, and Kmart the largest retailer ever to file bankruptcy are laying off thousands of their work force.  Is your job really secure in the public sector?  I don't believe so.  Currently 6% of those gainfully employed, or work force, are unemployed.  It was estimated by Congress that in the year 2002, 8,000,000 jobs will be lost after the twin tower tragedy.  Most recently in the aircraft industry Boeing plans to slash up to 3,000 jobs while GE Aircraft Engines announced plans to cut 4,000 jobs.  So things aren't going too well, are they?  At all levels of government fiscal year surpluses have become deficits, consequently the federal, state, and local municipalities are feeling the crunch which means all of us will have to tighten our belts.  Unlike the large cities of Hartford, Waterbury, New Haven, and Bridgeport, who are usually operating with a deficit, Watertown has for years been fortunate to operate with a surplus.  Town officials have stated that the Town's Fund Balance must be maintained as a requirement to obtain low interest bonding, also a Fund to be used in the case of an emergency, although it has been misused by Town officials to cover whatever shortfalls and whatever they think is feasible.  Personally as a senior citizen I will not approve of the current budget proposal because of the following reasons:

            We have a faltering economic client.
The inflated budget proposal of 1.2 mills is excessive.
A Town Fund Balance of $3,000,000.
No concessions of any kind offered by educators.  Their negotiations and what not, the public has no means of what their demands are and what the counteroffers are.  We've asked for that, but they won't comply.
Negotiations of annual contracts are kept secret.
Demands and counter proposals during the process are not known to the public.

            That is the reason why I can't afford this budget as a senior.  Maybe other people can, but I can't.  Our medical costs are getting higher and things are not too great for us seniors at this moment, so that should be taken into consideration when you plan the budget.  You've got to think of the seniors.  They're a part of this Town, they've done their thing for years, and I think they deserve a break.  Thank you very much. 

            Jean McNair, 43 Middlebury Road, Watertown, CT  06795

            Ms. McNair:  I have two suggestions that have come to me just while I was sitting here:

            If you really want a bigger turnout at budget meetings, go back to the Town Budget Meeting and do away with machine Referenda.  At least that way at least the people who show up might know what they're voting for.

            Mr. Archer:  Just because a couple of people are leaving, I want to address that.  The machine Referendum is forced by a petition.

            Ms. McNair:  I know, you really don't have to tell me.

            Mr. Archer:  Well for the benefit of everyone in the room.

            Ms. McNair:  Secondly if you want to do phone banking before the Referendum, put me down on the list of
            volunteers.  I'd be glad to do phone calls.  I've done it for years.

            I was reading a letter to the Editor in the Town Times a few weeks ago that talked about the need to live on a
            fixed income.  I think that the Town and the Board of Education should also live on a fixed income.  I think that
            our combined Town and School Budgets should be tied directly to the social security cost of living adjustment.  I
            propose that the Town and the School Budget increase automatically at the rate of 50% of the annual social
            security COLA, that way we will know our available funding in advance of our Town fiscal year and we can plan for
            increased costs, maintenance, and projected capital expenditures.  We would save the cost of repeated annual
            budget Referenda and be able to budget for current and future expenditures.  Let's try it.

            Finally I urge all residents to vote yes on the budget as presented this evening.  I am sorry the previous budget failed.

            Mr. Archer:  I want to thank you for coming up and offering a truly creative solution.  We need more people to come up and say I'd like to volunteer, so I appreciate it.  Thank you very much.

Denise Russ, 135 Porter Street, Watertown, CT  06795

            Ms. Russ:  I am here tonight to say you didn't get your answers tonight guys.  No one can tell you exactly where to cut in your two budgets.  No one ever has, and no one ever will.  It's going to be both of your committees that are going to do it, and good luck.  But I'm here tonight to tell you to keep the budget the way it is, (inaudible) exact that went to Referendum the first time.  Submit it again.  If it fails, then cut drastically, both budgets, and when you cut you make sure those cuts stay, whether it's Policemen, Firemen, Fire Trucks, emergency, and then God forbid if anybody ever needs something and there's nobody there to help them, then this Town will wake up, because right now, they're not going to wake up.  There's over 3,000 students in this Town.  If one parent came out at every budget and voted, we'd have a nice turnout, and yes, there is a way to let the parent's know, to the lady who spoke earlier.  The PTA presidents and co-presidents, they normally have a telephone (inaudible) and they call all the parents in the schools.  We have done it, being on the Board of Education before, it does work but not terrifically.  But anyway keep the budget guys, go to Referendum, and when you cut, don't put anything back.  Let the Town suffer.

            Donna Vignali, 405 Neill Drive, Watertown, CT  06795

            Ms. Vignali:  This is my first budget meeting also.  I'm just here to say that this is a bare bones budget that needs to be passed.  All of the things that are left are all safety issues.  The issue dealing with the intercom, getting teachers into these schools, the parents of students in these schools needs to know that this budget needs to be passed for safety reasons.  If they want their children safe, they need to pass this budget.  So if nothing gets out tonight, that needs to get out.

            Also on the Town's side, we're talking about Police cars, Fire trucks, we're dealing strictly with safety and that's sad that we have to do that, that's all we can include in the budget, but right now this budget needs to be passed.

            I'm a teacher in Waterbury and I need to say that because I read the Town Times every single week and W.O.T.A. came up here today and the first thing they said was we demand the Minutes of this meeting, so when they decide to start their editorial in writing about everything that is said at this meeting, and they see what I say, and they want to attack me, I want them to know right out that I am a teacher, because I know that will be coming.  Thank you.

            Mr. Archer:  Well just to your point about them coming up and asking to demand the Minutes of the meeting.  The Minutes are free to anyone who wants them.  Nobody has to demand them.  They just go to the Annex and request them and they get a copy.  There's no demand required.

Richard Halligan, 263 Oak Drive, Watertown, CT 06795

            Mr. Halligan:  I have come to these budget meetings, not to the last one, but I'm going to say for the past 5 or 6
            years, and asked a number of questions, and seen any number of different members on the Board and the Town
            Council, and it's the same thing over and over again.  It's a continual battle to try and get a budget passed in this
            Town, and what suffers from all of this is the infrastructure.  All of the things that everybody complains about that
            don't get done when we don't pass a budget, and it winds up costing us maybe more money in the long run or a 
            lot more money because there comes a point where you can't fix something, you have to replace it.  Because
            you didn't take care of it it's going to cost you a lot more money.

            I'm not happy with this budget if it's going to be cut down to .9.  I think the budget as it existed that went down in
            Referendum probably fell short of what we really need in this Town to get it back on its feet.  Now to counter that,
            the times are very difficult right now, economically.  A lot of people are out of work, a lot more people are going to
            be out of work, and we need to find a way to try to get through this, but I think honestly a no mill increase is
            unacceptable and irresponsible is my feeling.  I think we need to again continue to invest in the Town and to try to
            do things to improve it and to maybe try to cut some of the costs down in the long run.  Thank you.

            Fran Palmer, 220 Middlebury Road, Watertown, CT  06795

            Ms. Palmer:  I have a Junior at the High School and I would like to speak in favor of keeping these teachers that you're hoping to hire for the High School.  The High School classes now are getting stretched as it is.  One of my nieces graduated this year with a class of 208.  The class from Swift that graduated had 311.  Even if the average 50 or so people go somewhere else, that's an increase of 50 students right there, so besides the fact that the classes are tight already, they're going to get tighter with the 50 additional students, or more, at that school.  I would just like to ask for that to stay in the budget.

Also with the janitorial workers, the schools are looking good, as best as they can with what they're given.  They don't have a lot of supplies and what have you.  If one is absent it does make a difference in any of the schools.  I also will state that I am a teacher here in Watertown so that that won't come out later as this is why I'm speaking, but I do work at Swift, I do see the work that they do, and I do see what happens when they are short staffed, and I think that those two items should also stay in the budget if possible.  Thanks.

            Gary Jablonski, 133 Inverary Drive, Watertown, Ct  06795

            Mr. Jablonski:  I just have a suggestion about getting information out to people – I believe you missed an opportunity this past week when you didn't have a Town Council meeting.  I think what you might be able to do is get Channel 5 to tape the presentations for the budget and present those, say if you had a meeting, you didn't have a meeting, you should have had a presentation on Cable 5.

            Mr. Baclawski:  We're working on a presentation for Cable 5 before the Referendum.

            Mr. Jablonski:  Good, then that will get out there, the information (inaudible).  My second comment was that when you're talking about cuts, I'm under the impression that you're talking about cuts from any increase.  I would like you to present the cuts that you have made and have looked into that were expenditures for this year, not cuts in your increases, but the cuts that you looked at and implemented that were already spent.  Do you see what I mean?  Cause it seems like, the impressions I'm under is that when you had a request for this and this and this, and you had to cut this and this and this, but that's cutting from an increase, it's not cutting from the budget as it already was.  So what balances have you made from the increases (inaudible) cutting from the budget as it was to make something more efficient.

            Mr. Baclawski:  At a Hearing we had in front of the Town Council Budget Committee one of the things that I
            brought to everybody's attention at that meeting was how the Board of Education goes about preparing its
            budgets.  (Inaudible) program base budget and the budget numbers that are presented and brought forth comes
            from the team leaders and the administrators within the schools and what they are is basically requests for new
            items that they need for the different curriculums and for the facilities, so we look at all those, but we also on the
            other side look at increases and different, other items that are mandated, what we consider mandated.  Our
            mandated costs account for upwards of 96% of our overall budget, and those could include anything from salary 
            increases due to contracts to contract in services increases to medical benefits increases, different insurances,
            increases as far as liability and property insurance, so I mean we really have to deal with the reality of what we
            have coming in before us and then we go and turn that, from the portion of what we're kind of mandated to pay out
            to what we're looking to do as far as bringing along objectives within the school system.

            One of the things we looked at again, like I said earlier, was heating projects.  Several of our schools are in
            desperate need of repaving of their lots.  But unfortunately we came to realize that we couldn't do them all at
            once.  So what we did was we took them from a commitment priority and said we would put one in and make
            sure we could get one done this year and then look to next year to getting another one.  So it is an increase, it's
            considered an increase because it's something we didn't do last year, or the year before.  I mean a lot of these
            things that we're doing are things that haven't been taken care of for many years.  So that's where we kind of deal
            with the new requests to see where the priority lies and where do we really say this is something we can do this
            year, this is something we really can't afford to do, let's put this off to a later date when we feel we have other
            priority items taken care of, and then we can bring in these other new things to get them as part of the next
            year's budget, or the next (inaudible) budget, whatever the case may be.

            It's difficult to really kind of project a whole lot of different numbers, because one of the things that Lee brought
            forward regularly was that the budget is always in flux and we bring you a set of numbers today, but those
            numbers can change tomorrow.  Certain items are fixed and they will not change because they are mandated,
            like insurance items and medical benefits, those are in flux depending upon a lot of different variables that we 
            don't have any control over.  We try to do the best we can getting the hardest numbers possible to bring forward. 
            Now even as the budget is in place, we're seeing different changes within the numbers, so it's a process that's
            very elongated, and unfortunately we try to do the best we can to bring forth the hardest numbers to you and give
            you a good insight into what we're looking to do. 

            Mr. Jablonski:  I have another comment.  The gentleman talked about dogs barking and you mentioned that he
            should stick to things about the budget, but I'd like to just have you keep in mind that a lot of people vote on a
            budget depending upon what their quality of lives are in their neighborhood.  And if the gentleman cannot sit 
            outside without enjoying the peacefulness and serenity of his property and have to listen to a bunch of dogs
            barking, then he's going to look at the budget and say, do I really want an increase in taxes when my quality of
            life is like this, so I think that his comments about barking dogs directly relate to the budget cause you have 60
            people here who may look through this proposed budget line by line and say this is a great budget, it's only a 3%
            increase.  There's a lot of people out there who get pay increases that are greater than that and there are a lot
            that are being laid off, but I think there's a lot of people out there who vote on the budget, not looking at a line by
            line item, but looking at the quality of their lives in their direct neighborhoods and around their properties, so just
            keep that in mind, because you have a lot of people who come to the Town Council meetings with their concerns
            about their quality of lives and it seems that there's a lot of people who leave that podium not completely
            satisfied, and I can see them not looking at a budget, all right, being this is a great budget as far as buying a new
            truck or whatever, but looking at it in quality of life issues.

            Mr. Archer:  No, I agree with you.  Perception is reality in a lot of cases and the only reason, and I encourage people to come up to the microphone here and at the Council meetings.  We try and get them the most complete answers we can.  We've gone to the extent of when we get, sometimes depending on how serious the issue was, we've actually collected the information for them and mailed it directly to them to get them the answers as quickly as possible.  The only reason I addressed the dog barking the way that I did is because that's a question that has been asked and answered at a Council meeting, so that was the only reason that I did, but I do take the comment pretty seriously and I do understand what you're saying.

            Mr. Jablonski:  Yea, a lot of people will not look at this and go through it line by line.  They just say well how is
            my quality of life?  Is it better than it was before?  And that's what they vote on budget.

            Mr. Archer:  Right.

            Mr. Jablonski:  You know it's the small things that you can do for someone without spending money, that will get them to vote for the budget.  And to reach all the people that haven't voted on the budget, there's a lot of people out there who won't care either way, but you've got to reach those people and (inaudible) people who will vote for it.  Thanks.

            Mr. Archer:  But the quandary about that, though, is that you've got the guy who drives over the (inaudible) hole every day and he says oh these damn roads, why don't they pave the roads, and then he doesn't vote, so I don't know how you reach those people.  I wish I had a magic bullet for that, but I've asked a couple of hundred people and I don't have an answer yet, but we're working on it.

            Mr. Jablonski:  It's tough, I think, for everyone in the Town, and even here to come up with suggestions as far as where to cut because when I look at this, and I can go through here line by line and say okay, this is a good budget and I think I'm going to vote for it, but where to cut I don't exactly know because I'm not into the particulars of a particular line item here, and that's where everyone else on the Budget Committee in the Town Council they know what is behind every one of these issues, so I can't come up here and tell you exactly where I need (inaudible).  I'd like to see something cut because I don't know (inaudible) that deeply enough in order to tell you where to cut.  All I can say is that well my wife got laid off last week and my income is going to be impacted by that.  I can tell you about the extra costs that I have in my life and say I can't spend extra money on taxes.  I voted for you people to look at the budget and to figure out where you can do something more efficiently because I don't know it as good as you do.  Okay? 

            Mr. Archer:  Just having come up to the microphone and said the things that you've said have been helpful, though.  There are people who will state that the budget is bloated and there's just tremendous amount of waste in it, and I ask where it is, and they say well it's your job to find it.  And then I say well how do you know it's bloated?  And they say well it's just, you know, you're politicians, it's always bloated, and those are the people who I'm specifically targeting as to tell me where to cut.  But the Town budget of $18,000,000, we can run the Town on half that, or a quarter, it's just a question of what kind of Town we'll have.

            Mr. Jablonski:  We'll run it into the ground.

            Mr. Archer:  Well yea, right, it's just a question of what kind of Town we'll have.  I mean we can run the school system on half the money too, but it's not going to be much of a school system.  The other thing is, do I expect everyone to understand all the numbers in the budget?  No.  Did we go through a process and discuss every single line item with all of the department managers?  Yes, we did, so we do have a greater insight into it.  But to not have a forum like this to give people the opportunity to voice their opinion on it would kind of fly in the face of our form of government, and that's why I feel this forum was necessary. Even if it's just to hear people come up and say hey, I'm having problems paying for my prescriptions, hey my wife got laid off and my income is going to drop.  Those are important things for us to know and to hear directly from people, and that's the purpose of this forum.

            Mr. Jablonski:  Good luck.  You've got a tough job.  Thanks. 

            Enrico Rinaldi, Saunders Avenue, Oakville, CT  06779

            Mr. Rinaldi:  I just want to say one word.  You know what I as told?  What they said about the dogs.  You can
            laugh if you want to.  If you sit in my back yard all day and hear those dogs from morning until night, none of you
            would laugh about it, and I thank you.  I asked the lady if you people could control those dogs a little bit?  You
            know the answer I got?  If you don't like it, move.  I said you're talking (inaudible) why do I have to move?  You 
            just came into Town.  This was a quiet neighborhood until all the new neighbors came in, everyone has dogs. 
            Through the yard and everything said.  Like the Chief of Police said to me, don't shoot the dogs, you'll go to jail. 
            Now yesterday I should have shot those dogs, I should have.  Broke my garden, broke my plants.  Who do you
            complain to?  If you (inaudible) the dog you're (inaudible).  Maybe when you catch those dogs they'll turn on you.
            But I thank the gentleman for what he was saying.  To live in the Town, when we moved here it was great.  Now
            the Town is going backwards not forwards.  I don't care how much money you're going to pay in taxes or
            whatever, and all these new houses affect that bill.  The Town is getting bigger and they want more money from
            the taxpayers.

           Mr. Rinaldi:  Well that's one of the reasons that they move into Town, they thought they were going to be in a quiet Town.  It used to be a quiet Town, but not no more.  (Tape #3, Side A ended – may have missed some.)

            Joseph Cefaretti, Oakville, CT  06779

            Mr. Cefaretti:  I'm what you call a fellow that reads the paper and looks at statistics, I figure they're very important.  Now the reason why the school system currently is being overcrowded is because there's too many new homes being built.  I don't know what can be done about that.  We're not looking for new homes.  We are looking for industry.  Amy, the Watertown reporter, and that was the article I think that you mentioned.  She did a very good job and I will probably relate something to her.  Not a rebuttal, just to compliment what she said.

            We have 3,608 students in the school system.  For years this Education Department has been saying we're going to have a student explosion.  It never came to be, but if this keeps up we will, because I think we have about 100 students that are going into Watertown High. I believe that Watertown High has about 1,200 students in the whole, I'm not sure of that, but am I right or wrong?  Right now I think it's about 900.

            Mr. Archer:  You're close.

            Mr. Cefaretti:  Figures I'm pretty good with, but not names.  There were some good, it was a very informative meeting like you say because with 3,608 students if one parent came here, you couldn't get them in this auditorium, could you?  What this Town Council has to do is find out why?  Why do we have 6% turnout for sewer extension, sewer projects?  Why do we get 27% to vote on Referendums, the last two.  One was on the Paparazzo property and the other was on the budget that was turned down.  Only 27% of the eligible voters exercised their right to vote.  Isn't that asinine?  It's ridiculous.  It's absolutely ridiculous. The Town that I lived in for 35 years and nobody wants to vote.  What's the matter with them?  I really don't know.

            There was some good topics said.  I respect this fellow over here.  If he doesn't like the taxpayer group, that's his prerogative.  The kid down there, the college student, he had a good point.  I was thinking about it, but it could be expensive, but you'd have to change the Charter and go through all kinds of red tape to have a Mayor or Selectman.  We do have enough people to have a Mayor, but it would be costly, and as a result the taxes are going to go up, there's no doubt about it.  There's another one here, the teacher that talked, I'm not criticizing you.  She says she's a teacher and I love her for it because she's teaching our children, but she comes from Swift and Swift recently added three classes to Swift in the basement and everybody thinks that's so bad.  Well I was a substitute teacher for 5 or 6 years in the Waterbury and Watertown school systems, and I know at each high school, whether it's Crosby, Wilby, or North End, whatever, they are 3 stories high and all of the industrial arts programs are in the basement.  They have Art, Gymnasium, Music, what have you is all in the basement, so it's not really a gloomy picture.

           Someone had a good point I wanted to say again.  She said that we should eliminate the process of a Referendum which would save us $7,000, which is good, I'll buy it, and she said that we'll do away with all this bickering an use the COLA, Cost of Living Adjustment as a guideline, and give everybody half of that.  That's wonderful.  I think that's wonderful.  If our thing was about 3% this year, we'll give the people 4.  We're not losing.  I mean we are losing, right, we're losing our shirts.  1% of millions of dollars runs into money and our thing is very high.  You're talking about $47,000,000, $48,000,000.  If we can cut that by just 1% each factor, we've done something right, that's the way I look at it.  There was something else she said that was good but not very feasible, because as long as you've got Unionism, they're going to buck you.  We don't want to eliminate Unions because we need them.  I was on both sides of the fence.  I was in the Union and I was on salary.  When you're on salary they can cut your neck off.  You either like it or lump it, but Unions will back you up.  You've got a tough proposition.  I don't know how you're going to do it.

            I'll give you one final solution.  If we got $400,000 in that Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, that funding, and we got $3,000,000, we can pass this budget if you drop it to zero.  How do you do it?  You take out the $430,000 and you take the rest out of the Fund Balance and you end up with a zero balance.  That's how to do it.  And I think you'll please everybody.

            Mr. Archer:  Thank you.  Is there anyone else who wishes to speak who hasn't already spoken?  At this time we'll close Public Participation.

3.          Adjournment

            Mr. Archer Closed the Public Hearing at 10:00 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Lee Archer, Chairman
                                                                                    Watertown Town Council

Approved:                  ______________________________
                                    Lynn M. LaForme, Clerk