Long into the night; town budget notes

The festivities at the Central Orange Senior Center will be ongoing tonight until at least 7:30 or 8 p.m. This afternoon will include a reception with hors d'oeuvres, and this evening there will be an art installation at 6, a performance by Mebanesville at 6:30 and a performance by Footnotes Tap Ensemble at 7:15. Just in case anybody wanted some early evening plans.

Also, the Town of Hillsborough is considering cutting costs in several different areas in preparation for what is widely recognized as a lean upcoming budget year. Some of their ideas from last weekend's budget retreat, sent in a release from the town, are below:


The town is aiming for no tax rate increase in the FY2010 budget. However, the Town Board seemed to agree that if there had to be a tax increase, a realistic goal would be to keep it below the inflation rate.
Working toward the goal of no tax increase, town division heads and key staff presented operational redesign and cost-containment ideas to the Town Board on Saturday, Jan. 24. The town’s departments have been generating ideas on how to contain costs since August. Ideas that the Town Board found worth pursuing include:

• Reorganizing the Police Department structure — Under the proposal, positions would be transferred from the community policing division to the patrol division. The change from a two-squad to a four-squad patrol structure would help contain overtime costs while also increasing officer safety and police presence as more backup police officers would be available. The restructuring also would help expand the community policing philosophy throughout the department, increasing officer engagement with the community.

• Delaying the eligibility for longevity pay for town employees — The Town Board discussed delaying eligibility for the bonus pay to three to five years of service for the town. The bonus is given annually during the week of Thanksgiving and increases with the number of years an employee has worked for the town.

• Delaying the eligibility for retirement insurance benefits for town employees — The town currently provides medical coverage at age 55 for regular employees and at age 52 for sworn law enforcement employees who retire from the town with 20 years of continuous service. Under the proposal, the time required for new employees to become eligible for retiree health benefits would be increased to 30 years of service. The eligible age for benefits also would be increased to age 60 for regular employees and age 57 for sworn law enforcement.

• Having the Orange Rural Fire Department help with fire inspections.

• Starting a fire code self-inspection program for those facilities found non-compliant during an initial inspection by the fire marshal — The fire marshal currently re-inspects non-compliant buildings up to two additional times.

The Town Board also found the idea of adding a purchasing officer to the town as worth pursuing with additional investigation. Currently, each town department is responsible for purchasing needs with little, if any, coordination between departments.
The board also directed the town to explore options for selling water temporarily.