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Date: 3/21/2023
BELCHERTOWN — On March 7 and 8, the Select Board, Finance Committee, Town Accountant Jill Rossi and Town Administrator Gary Brougham hosted multiple meetings with various department heads to go over initial budget requests and possible budget increases.
Meetings were hosted with a department head from the Senior Center, Clapp Memorial Library, Belchertown Family Center, Fire/EMS, Recreation, Police and IT department along with the town clerk, human resources director and Board of Assessors.
Each department head mentioned the global rise in costs have forced them to request more money and help along with requests for some capital funded projects.
The Senior Center, Clapp Memorial Library, Town Clerk Terry Camerlin, Human Resources Director Joanne Misiaszek, Fire Chief John Ingram and Police Chief Kevin Pacunas all expressed that they would like to see budget increases that help their respective staffs.
Senior Center Director Jessica Langlois said that she is looking at a budget increase in the outreach program.
The Senior Center currently has two outreach staff members, a 40-hour-a-week staff member and a 19- hour-a-week assistant.
Langlois would like the town to fund an additional hour for the assistant position to make it 20 hours a week with benefits. The Senior Center would use one of their grants to add another 10 hours of pay and make it a 30 hour a week position.
“Over the past few years, we have seen an increase in a need for assistance. Our outreach team works hard, and I don’t see this need decreasing anytime soon. I think having two full-time staff members will help, based on our influx in request for appointments,” Langlois said.
The Clapp Memorial Library is also looking for more assistance to help run the day-to-day operations.
Clapp Memorial Library Director Cynthia Harbeson mentioned to continue receiving state aid, the library must be open a minimum number of hours a week.
She said, “When Belchertown grew and surpassed 15,000 in population, we got bumped to population group E, which means that our open hours requirement is 50 hours a week. We are currently open 47 hours a week so on July 1, we need to be open an additional three hours a week.”
Harbeson said it is essential to remain certified for state aid so that residents can still borrow books and she would like to upgrade a current part-time 25 hour a week position to a full-time 40 hour a week position.
Harbeson added, “What I am hoping you are willing to do is take money from the library material line and move it to the full-time position line. We would not ask for additional money and use a fund we have through a grant to use for library materials we need.”
Camerlin is looking for an increase in part-time wages in her department because of early in-person and early vote by mail.
She said, “We are seeing an increase in the volume of work to process all of the new ways to vote. The town is in favor of early voting, and we are processing anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 ballots and to try to do that in your normal workload is not feasible anymore.”
Camerlin said in the past she has worked around 100 hours between nights and weekends and would love to add more help to alleviate the work.
Misiaszek requested a $5,000 training budget.
She said, “To be able to have access to training funds would allow me to provide staff with training as it comes up and trained planning that covers effective communication, customer service and team building. We are experiencing turnover in our staff so it would be great to get new faces mixed in with current faces. It has been shown that offering training to staff members help improves and keep morale up.”
Ingram has discussed a project to add a new living headquarter building in town for members of the Fire Department but when it comes to other budget request, he discussed adding a position to help him out.
Ingram said, “Out of everything, the deputy chief position is my number one priority and important to me. If something was to happen to me tomorrow, there is nobody there. Someone can make an honest captain, but they don’t have all the inner workings of what is happening and what is taking place.”
The Fire Department’s proposed budget is asking for approximately a 15 percent increase and the Finance Committee recommended Ingram go back and trim down some line items whether it be repairs or a new building.
Pacunas requested overtime to be raised by 10 percent for a budget of $30,000.
He added, “Since 2021, the COLA (cost-of-living adjustment) that the officers and dispatchers have gotten are roughly 10 and a half percent. Just off that reason alone the overtime should go up.”
Overall, the Police Department is asking around a 6 percentage point increase with 4 percent coming from raises and 2 percent coming from built-in COLA.
Select Board Chair Jim Barry mentioned that it will most likely take another joint meeting or two with the Finance Committee to put together all the budget requests before deciding the final town budget.
The only department that still needs to discuss their preliminary budget request with the Finance Committee is the School Committee, which planned to discuss it on March 22.