GREAT BARRINGTON — The selectboard and the Great Barrington finance committee last night approved the town’s fiscal-year 2022 budget, effectively sending the package to the annual town meeting on June 7, where voters will have their say on whether they approve of it.
The town’s proposed operating budget is nearly $13 million, up from $12.2 million last year, for an increase of 5.6%. Click here to see a brief PowerPoint presentation produced by town manager Mark Pruhenski, and here for the full package.
The proposed capital budget is a little more than $2.5 million, a decrease of 30.4 percent. After listening to a plea from Parks and Recreation Commission chair Karen Smith, the two panels did agree to increase the capital budget of the Department of Public Works by $100,000 to study the construction of public bathrooms for downtown.
See video below of the proposed budget presentation and public hearing held Tuesday night by the selectboard and finance committee:
“I am stunned that we don’t have public bathrooms,” said Smith, who added that she has been trying for 20 years to get the town to act. “We have cultural events; we have people coming to town; we want them.”
The operating budget total does not include the town’s contribution toward the annual budget of the Berkshire Hills Regional School District. Click here to see the district’s FY 2022 operating and capital budgets, as prepared by the superintendent and business manager and endorsed by the school committee late last month.
Great Barrington’s assessment — or share — of the district’s $23.7 million proposed budget is a little more than $18.4 million, an increase of nearly 5 percent over last year. The school assessment will be voted on separately at town meeting.
The boards took no action on a plan by town manager Mark Pruhenski, drawn up at the request of the selectmen, to allocate $850,000 to purchase a piece of property behind town hall, with another $340,000 for engineering and site preparation costs. The property would be used for a metered downtown parking lot.
Before the public hearing, the proposed budget did undergo some minor revisions totaling a net increase in the operating budget of almost $17,000. Click here to review them. In one case, the requested salary line for the assessor’s salary rose. Pruhenski announced that he had hired a new principal assessor to replace Shaun McHugh, who recently left the job after serving since June 2019. But the $80,000 budgeted for the salary of the new hire was not sufficient to attract a first-rate applicant.
So Pruhenski asked the selectboard and finance committee for nearly $12,000 more, which is actually in line with what McHugh’s predecessor, Chris Lamarre, made before he left to become principal assessor in Williamstown. Pruhenski received the extra funds and said the new assessor would start on April 1, but he did not announce the name of the new hire.
Pruhenski also said he needed more money for the salary of DPW Superintendent Sean VanDeusen. When longtime highway chief Pete Soules retired recently, Pruhenski ran up against the same problem. He had to offer more money to Soules’ replacement than Soules was making. That pushed the new hire’s salary to approximately the same level as his new boss, VanDeusen, necessitating an increase in VanDeusen’s salary totaling $5,265.
“Unfortunately, that attractive salary put that person in line with the superintendent so I had to make another salary adjustment along the way,” Pruhenski explained.
The two panels also heard from Alec R. Belman, a board member of Southern Berkshire Volunteer Ambulance (SBA) and a physician in Fairview Hospital’s emergency department. Belman said substantial changes are already underway at SBA. In fiscal distress last year, SBA had approached the selectboard seeking a sizable donation.
On the recommendation of Pruhenski, Finance Director Susan Carmel, and Fire Chief Charlie Burger, the boards agreed to provide SBA with $25,000 this year, but with a set on conditions, including a town representative on the SBA board appointed by the selectboard, a detailed audit to determine why SBA saw a 21-percent decrease in revenues in 2019, and a “multiyear business plan … showing how SBA plans to maintain a reliable level of 911 service while maximizing revenues from available business.”
The panels also agreed to transfer $25,000 out of a reserve fund to use a tarp to cover the leaky roof of the abandoned former Housatonic School and board up all its first- and second-floor windows with plywood. Selectboard chair Steve Bannon said the finance committee can authorize the transfer at the committee’s next meeting on April 20.
