Government & Politics
Darien Town Hall trees

Darien Board of Finance Proposes Slight Tax Cut, RTM to Vote in May

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A slight tax cut, shaving eight cents per $1,000 in assessed value in Darien property taxes, would go into effect if the Representative Town Meeting approves the package of budget and tax proposals just passed by the Board of Finance on Monday night. The new mill rate would be 16.08 mills, or $16.08 in taxes per $1,000 in assessed value, due in two installments on Jan. 1 and July 1 next year. The current mill rate is 16.16 mills, and the proposed mill rate would be a reduction of about half of 1 percent. Town officials said they wanted to avoid new programs in the budget, and keep a vice grip on hiring new staff. Capital projects involving construction were also minimized, with some new projects proposed for bonding rather than the operating budgets, spreading their cost into future years.

Government & Politics
Town Hall 2015

Selectmen Unanimously Pass $45.7 Million Budget, Cutting 1% from This Year’s Spending — Maybe No Fireworks This Year

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The Board of Selectmen on Monday unanimously recommended cutting the non-education part of town spending to bring it 1.05 percent below the current budget, as passed last year. One unexpected cut: $13,498 for the annual fireworks display, which may not be taking place this year for reasons having nothing to do with budgeting. Town officials said the high school’s turf fields and cafeteria reconstruction make that location too difficult, and there doesn’t seem to be another. The board cut $233,434 from the town administrator’s proposed budget to bring the overall budget to $45,689,237 — which is $485,395 less than the spending the town approved for the current 2017-2018 fiscal year. The cuts included deferring a project to improve a firefighter training facility ($45,000), postponing the hiring of more civilian dispatchers for the Police Department ($93,033 in salary and benefits for the last quarter of the fiscal year) and making a small cut ($42,391) to adjust the money the town gives Darien Library for workers compensation and medical insurance payments.

Government & Politics
Compost Darien Recycling Center 10-13-17

DPW Chief: A Grinding Machine at Transfer Station Could Save Darien $200K a Year

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Although Public Works Director Edward Gentile Jr. is still looking into the details, he says that buying machine to grind up brush, logs, grass and leaves at the town transfer station on Ledge Road  might mean Darien wouldn’t not have to truck out that waste, which costs the town $200,000 a year. The machine itself costs about $670,000, and it would have to be run and maintained by town employees, but after several years, the expense of its purchase would be made up in savings, he said. “The simple math is there,” he told the Board of Selectmen Monday night at a budget review meeting. “Throw in maintenance, probably closer to four [years], a little over four. But those are numbers I’m working on now.”

Government & Politics
Buch budg pie chart

Town Administrator’s Budget Proposal Reduces Spending by 0.42%

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Spending on the non-education part of the town budget (which is only about a quarter of total town spending) would go down 0.42 percent under the proposal Town Administrator Kathleen Buch presented to the Board of Selectmen on Monday night. “The town budget’s flat,” Buch said. Total spending would be $45,980,169 — down $194,463 from last year. (That amount would knock 0.02 from the mill rate, if everything else were equal, such as an education budget that was no larger than this year’s. Buch said it takes about $85,000 to reduce the tax rate by one one-hundredth of a mill, which is the amount of taxes for every $1,000 of assessed residential property value.)

Buch pointed to several factors that allowed overall spending to decrease:

Debt service this year is down by $925,721, since the town hasn’t been borrowing as much as it used to.

Government & Politics
Darien Town Hall trees

Proposed Town Budget Goes to Board of Selectmen Starting Monday

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Town Administrator Kathleen Buch will present a proposed 2018-2019 town budget Monday evening to the Board of Selectmen, and selectmen will start reviewing budgets for various departments during the week. Here’s the schedule of meetings, which runs into the following week and will be covered live by Darien TV79 on cable channel 79 as well as online:

 

 

From Darien TV79’s weekly newsletter:
On Darien TV79
Planned Darien TV79 coverage for the week ahead:    
Monday 

Bd of Selectmen: Budget  — Room 206  — 7 pm —  AGENDA
RTM Education — Room 119  — 7:30 pm  — AGENDA

Tuesday 

Bd of Selectmen: Budget — Room 206  — 5 pm  — AGENDA

Wednesday  

Bd of Selectmen: Budget — Room 206 — 5 p.m. — AGENDA

 
On Darien TV79’s Cable TV Channel and Vimeo Website
These previous meetings can be viewed on TV at the times mentioned below or on demand at the Vimeo website:
Board of Education — Jan. 23  Runs  2:44 — AGENDA  —  VIMEO
o   Airs  2:00, 10:23  AM & PM
 
Board of Selectmen & Dept Heads — Jan. 23 — Runs 2:29 — AGENDA  — VIMEO
o   Airs  7:54  AM & PM
 
Commission on Aging — Jan. 17 — Runs  47 min  — AGENDA  —  VIMEO
o   Airs  5:00  AM & PM 
 
Full RTM — Jan.

Government & Politics
Jon Zagrodzky Darien Mens Club talk 12-16-17

Darien Finance Board Chairman Speaks to Men’s Club Wednesday on Town, State Budget Issues

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Jon Zagrodzky, chairman of the Town of Darien Board of Finance, will talk about the impact of state-level budget challenges at the Darien Men’s Association on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2017.  The town’s annual budget is $140 million. He also will comment on broader governance issues for Darien and the state of Connecticut. Jon said, “There will be as much levity and irreverence as a discussion of these topics permits.”  He has been a Board of Finance member since 2008. He also serves on Darien’s Town and Police Pension boards and the Public Works Garage Building Committee.

Government & Politics
Town Hall

Darien Town Officials Talk Fiscal Tight-Fistedness at Recent Public Meetings

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Monday night’s Representative Town Meeting, at which RTM members heard State of the Town addresses, was only one of the public meetings this month where top town officials said Darien is in for years of belt-tightening. Schools Superintendent Dan Brenner told the Board of Education weeks before that he didn’t expect to roll out any new programs or costly initiatives in the upcoming budget. The only additions he was contemplating were for a few new employees, and he said he expected to make a strong case for them. The school district’s fiscal forecast showed increases in the budget on the order of 2 to 4 percent a year for the next five years. But Board of Finance Chairman Jon Zagrodzky said at a Board of Finance meeting on Nov.