The Town Council is expected to meet next week to continue budget discussions for the assessors and school departments.
PALMER – The Town Council this week supported salary increases of 1.5 percent for all 10 department heads, along with doubling the money for a recreation director position and adding an extra $10,000 for park maintenance.
Town Council President Eric A. Duda said a recent agreement by all municipal and school unions to increase co-pays from $5 to $10 and emergency room visits from $25 to $50 saved the town approximately $200,000, and is helping to make a difference in the fiscal 2012 budget.
Eric A. Duda“This helps save positions, and fund departments better. It’s definitely a step in the right direction,” Duda said on Wednesday.
“There is more money available now basically because of the changes in health insurance,” Duda said.
Regarding the salary increases, Duda said it shows employees that they are valued. At-large Councilor Paul E. Burns said it would have been the fourth consecutive year without raises for the department heads.
Duda said park maintenance is now budgeted at $60,200, whereas before it was approximately $47,000. Other changes include a new 9-wheel dump truck for public works, which will be leased for five years at $45,000 each year, and a new police cruiser, he said.
The council met Tuesday night to discuss the budget, and is expected to revisit budgets next week for the assessors and school departments.
Duda said the council opted to cut $12,000 in funding for a new part-time economic development director and shift it toward the $12,000 part-time recreation director. That means that $24,000 is now being budgeted for the recreation director, and $4,000 for expenses. The economic development director’s expenses also were transferred to recreation.
“This is the first step in really improving and enhancing Palmer’s quality of life issues,” Burns said.
Burns said it’s time that the council “bite the bullet on this” as it’s talked about every year, but never funded.
Duda later said that he has been pushing to have the recreation position funded, and called it a “step in the right direction.”
“The charter does require it. We can’t keep saying every year we don’t have the money when the people of Palmer voted for it,” Duda said.
In other news, the council also heard from Library Director Nancy Menard, who asked councilors to reconsider the proposed 3.5 percent cut to her fiscal 2012 budget, suggesting a 2.75 percent reduction instead.
With the larger budget cut, she would lose a part-time librarian assistant position and weekly hours would go from 48 to 44. She said she has yet to determine where four hours would be cut.
Including the cut, the fiscal 2012 library budget would be $660,990, down from last year’s appropriation of $684,965. There are 11 full-time employees at the library, including Menard, and two part-timers, including the one slated to be eliminated. She said the librarian assistant is critical to the day-to-day operations at the service desk, and works about 18.5 hours per week. She suggested changing the hours to 12 hours per week, which would be possible with the lesser cut.
Said District 4 Councilor Donald Blais, “I hope we can come to a number so we don’t impact the community as severely ... I know these are tough times but we don’t want to hit the community too hard.”
Burns said the library does a “tremendous job” of serving the residents, but said the council has the task of trying to make sure the needs of all departments are met.