JOHN CAMEROTA
WESTFIELD – The Finance Committee began its department by department interviews last night as part of the review of the fiscal year 2015 city budget submitted by Mayor Daniel M. Knapik.
Finance Committee Chairman Christopher Keefe slated the Law, Fire, Police, Technology and Public Works departments for review, a process that lets council members determine funding requirements for the upcoming fiscal year which begins July 1.
Eight council members attended the hearings last night and heard that not all funding needs are addresses in Knapik’s proposed budget. The most notable example of that is within the police department budget where a request for $180,000 has been zeroed out for the past several years.
Typically the Police Department requests the $180,000 to replace a third of the line cruisers every year, rotating the fleet every three years. Knapik has cut that entire spending request, relying on the storage and towing account, a fee assessed when vehicles are towed at police request.
MICHAEL MCCABE
Police Chief John Camerota and Captain Michael McCabe said they use that revenue fund, established to allow the department to purchase a variety of vehicles, such as quads used in off-road patrols responding to citizen complaints.
McCabe said the department has been transiting from Crown Victoria to “new trucks which are much more fuel efficient and also come with a 100,000-mile warranty instead of the 75,000-mile warranty that the Crown Victoria’s have.”
Camerota said the Towing and Storage Account is almost depleted because it has been used to purchase six of the last 12 line vehicles for the department. Since its inception the Towing and Storage account has generated nearly $500,000, but currently has a balance of about $15,000.
“It’s not a finite account,” McCabe said. “From year to year we don’t know how much will come in. And we have no line item for vehicle purchase.”
CHRISTOPHER KEEFE
Knapik has used free cash several time to partially fund the vehicle purchases, appropriation requests that typically come before the City Council in January after the state Department of Revenue has certified the amount of money left over from the previous fiscal year.
“If I had a budget that gave the department six new cars every years, all of the old cars would be cycled out and we’d be getting new cars that get better (gas) mileage and require less maintenance,” McCabe said. “And we would not be tapping into the Towing and Storage funds so money would be there when we need a special vehicle, like a boat for patrolling Hampton Ponds.”
The committee members also discussed the Public Works Department budget Monday night, with Keefe asking why Superintendent Jim Mulvenna, who prepared the budget was not present. Community Development Director Peter J. Miller Jr., who appeared before the committee with Deputy Superintendent Casey Berube and City Engineer Mark Cressotti, said that Mulvenna remains on administrative leave.
The Board of Public Works has cancelled an executive session meeting set for this evening to discuss a personnel matter, presumably on the status of Mulvenna.
The Public Works budget is a collection of six different line items in the budget, reflecting the fact that the department performs diverse collection of functions: maintaining roads, collecting solid waste and recycling, and maintaining city grounds and parks.
