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Date: 2/8/2023
SOUTHWICK — As they craft their initial budgets for the fiscal year 2024 budget cycle, several department heads have already warned the Select Board of increased costs of staffing and materials nearly across the board.
Fire Chief Richard Stefanowicz, Police Chief Robert Landis, Council on Aging Director Cindy Sullivan and Town Clerk Michelle Hill have each addressed the Select Board in recent weeks to talk about their initial assessment of their respective anticipated budgets in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
In almost every case so far, staffing has been a concern whether it be simply increasing the budget for department salaries, or even finding staffing at all.
“Costs are going up, salaries are going up,” said Sullivan, who jointly heads the Parks and Recreation Department along with the Council on Aging.
Of particular concern for her this budget season were the wages paid to lifeguards at Southwick’s Town Beach. Last year, a beach manager and assistant manager were paid $15.50 and $15 per hour, respectively, but this year she said that may not be enough. Instead, Sullivan asked the Select Board for permission Feb. 6 to raise the hourly wages to $18 for a manager, $17 for assistant manager, and $16.50 for a lifeguard. The Select Board said they would oblige.
Sullivan said part of the reason for the increase was because lifeguards have to pay out-of-pocket costs for training before they can even be hired.
For emergency departments like police and fire, the challenges were similar.
“Some areas, right off the bat, were obvious that we need an increase,” said Stefanowicz to the Select Board on Jan. 23.
Staffing and firefighter training are two of the most significant increases Stefanowicz said he expects for the next fiscal year, with a possible $20,000-$30,000 increase in the overtime budget, as well as the unexpected cost of maintenance of one of the department’s ambulances. Last February, a Southwick Fire Department ambulance was totaled in an accident with another vehicle, and was subsequently replaced with a used ambulance from 2013.
“Anything we need for parts has become very expensive, as well as labor costs,” said Stefanowicz.
The fire chief said he hopes to be able to utilize two grants from the state for this budget cycle to help offset the increased costs: The SAFER grant to support staffing costs, and the Assistance to Firefighters Grant to help cover the cost of new ambulance equipment like a stretcher. Both grants come from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
For the Police Department, Landis said that staffing is also major concern in his budget, as he hopes to get the department — which currently has four officer vacancies — back to full strength.
“We weren’t built to lose four people,” said Landis. “Boat patrols, citizen police academies are not happening because officers are working doubles as it is.”
Landis said he is willing to minimize other parts of the budget in order to get staffing under control.
Town Clerk Michelle Hill also went to the Select Board Jan. 23 to inform them that she would need to close her office in Town Hall to the public on Fridays in order to catch up on work her staff cannot do during the week due to two vacant positions.
“On Fridays we are just not open to the public, but we will still take calls and people can still drop stuff off which we process throughout the day,” said Hill.