NORWALK, Conn. – Mayor Harry Rilling looked down from the Norwalk Concert Hall stage Wednesday at a Democratic volunteer who helped him get elected as she criticized some of the work that has been done thus far and harkened to a phrase used by one of Rilling’s opponents in the race to be mayor.
Democratic Town Committee member Diane Lauricella, a persistent municipal government critic and member of the Mayor’s Energy and Environment Task Force, was one of five people who addressed the Board of Estimate and Taxation in a half-hour public hearing on Norwalk’s proposed 2014-15 operating budget.
The Common Council has set a cap of $317.9 million, $500,000 less than the original request made by Rilling and the BET.
Lauricella said she was disappointed that the BET stopped aggressively looking for cuts in the proposed budget when finance personnel found surpluses that made cuts unnecessary to stay under the Common Council-mandated budget cap.
“I know many of you continue to look for cuts in the budget. I believe there are cuts in the budget for this fiscal year that I do believe many of you would be interested in,” she said.
The city spends $300,000 on leaf and stump removal, she said, as an example. That could be cut in half, she said. With that and other cuts it would then be easy to find the $30,000 the (Lockwood-Mathews Mansion) museum is seeking, she said.
“Unless we challenge our department staff to cut and think outside of the box, they won’t,” she said. “It’s so easy to write a check, out of sight out of mind, on leaf removal. I have suggested at the Public Works Committee of the Common Council with the department head in the past that we work with the Conservation Commission, like other towns, and start a backyard composting program and have a goal of cutting the leaf removal cost by half. That is a modest goal.”
Department of Public Works Director Hal Alvord has another idea, she said.
“I have heard through the grapevine that the department head is looking at a site that nobody knows about, including neighborhoods, for a leaf composting site,” she said. “Again, to be successful with this, we have to be transparent and not ram it through. Unfortunately, this particular department has a history of surprising people at the last minute for their major project initiatives.”
BET Chairman Jim Clark let Lauricella talk for 12 minutes, well beyond the three-minute time limit. “You’re making a lot of good points, I want to hear them,” he said after eight minutes.
An odor problem at the sewage treatment plant is hurting redevelopment and it’s “not true” that nothing can be done, Lauricella said.
Increased and “reasonable enforcement” of Norwalk’s litter, zoning, snow removal and noise laws, “not with a heavy hammer” but with education, would help bring in more revenue.
“I know it was very difficult for many of you new appointees and our mayor to come in in the middle of a budget cycle, hit the ground running and then look for cuts, so I really applaud the effort,” she said. “I am hoping that, by next year, there are some real attempts to look at new budgeting models. I know that many have said zero-based budgeting doesn’t work, (that) we have tried it. I don’t know because I’m not a financial expert, never claimed to be. New budget formatting, maybe performance budgeting, I’m sure that the mayor and many of you who are new and those of you who have been on the board could look at another way to look at the budget making instead of just looking at what everyone had the year before. They all ask for their 8 percent and then we go forward.”
Rilling’s fellow Democratic mayoral candidate Matt Miklave pushed performance-based budgeting as part of his campaign.
“Some of these departments have not been spending the money wisely and they get used to a level and know they have a traditional cut coming. All I am saying is let’s look at almost zero-based budgeting. … The taxpayers are suffering,” she said.
New city vehicles should be expected to meet a minimum fuel economy, she said. “That is still not the case here and I have been talking about this for years,” she said. “I am hopeful that Mayor Harry will think about this because it is something that is done” in other cities.
Personnel reviews of senior staff should be mandatory, she said, but “I do believe that between now and next winter things will change.” The Planning and Zoning department should be reorganized, maybe “mix up the deck chairs” with the urban planners in redevelopment, she said.
“Charter change can happen. Ordinance changes can happen. Personnel reorganization can happen,” she said. “Consider combining the weights and measures person, John Schwartz, with Ed Schwartz, and I don’t think they’re related. I know there’s been some folks saying there isn’t enough money for that. Well I’m not sure there are enough things for weights and measures to do full time. I have a feeling that we need to think outside the box.”
Lauricella was the last speaker. The meeting ended without further comment from Rilling.
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