WESTFIELD – Members of City Council’s Finance Committee questioned if the budgets submitted to the council for the combined Department of Public Works are sufficient to provide services for the entire 2016 fiscal year which begins on July 1, 2015 and concludes on June 30, 2016 after reviewing the budget numbers Thursday night.
The budget as proposed is 1.18 million below the level of funding requested by Water Resource Superintendent Dave Billips, who is also the interim Public Works Superintendent for the 2016 Fiscal Year. The budget proposed for the new combined Department of Public Works is $15.7 million
Several of the revenue-generating department accounts were cut because the upcoming fiscal year budget cannot exceed the revenue collected in the last complete fiscal year, which in this case is the 2014 Fiscal Year.
Members of the Finance Committee expressed concern that the proposed budget will not be sufficient to provide funding through the FY 16 year and asked Billips if he will need additional funding later during the fiscal year.
Ward 6 Councilor Christopher Crean asked if Billips would have to come back for additional overtime funding and noted that the purchase of services account for the Wastewater Treatment was $600,000 lower than the current budget.
Finance Chairman, At-large Councilor, Brent B. Bean II asked if the Water Resource Department construction account is adequately funded.
“Do you have funding for new projects to extend lines to people not currently served by city water?” Bean asked Billips.
Billips said that most of the construction account is used to replace older lines which actually had a “nominal” internal diameter of an inch and a half.
“Most of that money goes to replacing and repairing old corroded lines,” Billips said.
“It’s a bare bones budget, lower than in the past few years,” Billips said.
“We’ll do what we can with what we have,” Billips said at the end of the budget review. “We’ll get the work done, and maybe use some different technologies. Hopefully it will be better next year. I don’t pad my budgets; I give a true accounting of what we need. It’s a lean budget; I know these are tough times financially for the city.”
“We’ll provide the best service we can, but it will be a tough year,” Billips said.
The largest cut made by Mayor Daniel M. Knapik was to the Highway division under the newly restructured Public Works Department which includes Highway, Water Resources, Stormwater, and Sewerage Treatment, Sewer, and Natural resources and Parks divisions.
Billips said Friday that the $426,000 cut to the Highway division means that division will not purchase any new vehicle and will have four vacant positions, a clerk and three equipment operators.
The Land and Natural Resources division budget was cut by $254,000, also deleting the purchase of vehicles, including a replacement mower, and leaving four position vacant
The trash collection budget was cut by $121,000 by eliminating the purchase of a truck and leaving one position unfilled.
The recycling budget was cut by $60,000 meaning that a vehicle used for both trash collection and recycling will not be purchased.
The new combined Department of Public Works administration account was cut by $106,000 meaning that the assistant director’s post will be funded for six months and the stormwater coordinator position totally underfunded. The budget does allow the hiring of a new DPW director to oversee all of those divisions.
