Council Approves

Transfers

By Steve Bigham

The Legislative Council made several year-end transfers within the 1999-2000 budget at its meeting Wednesday night. The fiscal year ends June 30.

In the assessor’s budget, the council agreed to move $176,000 out of “contingency” into the “selectmen’s non-recurring budget” to pay for one half of revaluation. The total cost of the revaluation project is $352,000 and next year’s budget has another $176,000 earmarked for revaluation.

A total of $50,000 was moved from “contingency” to “public building capital” to help pay for the underfunded roof project at the multi-purpose center on Riverside Road.

An additional $30,000 was moved out of “contingency” to be funded under the “public building capital” line item for the partial demolition and repair of the old highway garage/teen center.

The council also voted to move $8,325 worth of unencumbered funds to the highway department’s “overtime fund” to pay for additional overtime for highway clean-up after storms and for highway employees to work past the regular working hours to complete road projects.

Under police, $3,090 was moved from “sworn personnel” to “police overtime” for several “long term, high-profile serious crime investigations,” while Hook & Ladder received $2,536 for repairs to Ladder Truck 114.

The council also approved the transfer of $8,618 from “contingency” to the Cyrenius H. Booth Library account to pay for a January leak in the building’s heating system and to repair the telephone CPU struck by lightning earlier this month.

Also approved for transfer was $5,498 from “full-time operators” to “equipment” rental to pay for the replacement of a switching device that has turned out to be more expensive than expected.

Another $4,128 was moved from “contingency” to pay for an increase in the first selectman’s salary ($2,385) and to up the pay of the under-funded assistant building official. The first selectman’s salary increase was approved after the budget was adopted.