SALEM — The removal of a captain's position in the Police Department, a clerical fix, and cuts to Fire Department overtime made up most of the $315,000 cut by the selectmen from the operating budget last night.
Police Chief Paul Donovan and Deputy Chief Shawn Patten, who formerly held the captain's position, strongly opposed the cuts. Patten said after the vote that not filling the position meant it was "extremely likely" the town would lose one of its school resource officers next year.
"Cutting a position leaves us no choice but to look elsewhere within the agency to staff ourselves as we need to," Patten told the board.
He told the board the first move would likely be removing school resource officers from Woodbury School and Salem High.
"In the world today, (school resource officers) are a luxury," he said.
Selectman Everett McBride introduced the motion to cut the position by reducing the police budget by $125,286, the captain's salary and benefits.
Patten told the board the captain is in charge of operations support and oversees investigations, community services, the records division, schools, and prosecution. Without it, he and a detective lieutenant are splitting the work.
"It is an extremely large management void," he said.
The captain's position opened when Patten was promoted to deputy chief to replace William Ganley, who retired. Patten said the department, which has many new and young members, needed the "veteran leadership" a more experienced person could bring to the position if promoted.
"We are stretched thin," he said.
He said the department has had no increase in manpower since the early 1990s, but since 1995, police activity has increased 130 percent.
He said like the Fire Department, police have felt the "Lawrence effect" in the aftermath of layoffs there.
He said the town is seeing between 2 and 4 burglaries a week, on average; can only police traffic if officers have the time; and said just one detective is working full time on drug crimes.
"The difference between a captain and patrolman is $38,000, which is less than half a percent on our budget," he told the board.
He said the department has been "neglected" historically, and he understood the importance of cutting the budget — but said the town couldn't afford to cut more police.
Selectman Patrick Hargreaves said he would support the motion, saying he had been told nobody else would be hired when the board approved Patten's promotion, costing an extra $1,000 a year. But acting Town Manager Henry LaBranche disputed that account.
"What I believe I said, Mr. Hargreaves, was that night I was not proposing any other change other than the authorization to spend the additional $1,000 that was going to be necessary on an annual basis to promote Capt. Patten at the time to deputy chief," he said. "I never said that we were never coming back to ask for it to be filled."
Chairman Michael Lyons said he also would approve the cut because he wanted the new town manager to review the department's structure.
But Selectman Beth Roth disagreed.
She said cutting would give the new town manager a message that they had a plan for him or her to carry out. Not cutting would be a hands-off approach and allow the manager to make up his or her mind.
"I'm not going to interfere with a paramilitary-type of organization that brings public safety to our community," she said.
The cut passed, 3-2, with Roth and Selectman Susan Covey voting against.
Another large savings was found in an adjustment on health insurance costs for the Police Department, which was about $125,000 too high due to an error made during the budgeting process. The total police budget was $7.8 million by the end of the cuts.
Another large cut came in the Fire Department's overtime budget. The department's budget included more than $1 million for overtime and replacement pay.
Covey said with eight firefighters added in the last five years and a switch to 24-hour shifts, she thought those numbers should stop rising.
"I expected to see these numbers decrease and they continued to go up," she said.
She proposed a $50,000 cut to the overtime pay. It passed 4-1, with Roth voting against.
The board also made a slew of other small cuts. Their $315,000 in reductions brought the operating budget — not including warrant articles or water and sewer funds — about $35,000 over level-funded, according to LaBranche.
Before the $315,000 in reductions, the town manager's recommended operating budget for the general fund was $28.7 million.
Finance Director Jane Savastano said the general fund operating budget, including the library and estimated overlay and war credits, the capital improvement plan, and recurring warrant articles, would raise the tax rate 9 percent, or 47 cents.
But bonding a proposed bridge project proposed for the warrant this year would reduce the tax rate increase to 7.8 percent, she said.
Spending on the general fund operating budget was up about 3 percent over last year.
LaBranche said he thought the selectmen had done all they could in the general fund operating budget.
"Your warrant and your (capital improvement program) are going to determine what your tax rate is," he said.
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