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Norwalk BET opens multi-day budget reviews; chair demands 10% departmental cuts
Summary
At a March 3 special meeting, Norwalk’s Board of Estimate and Taxation heard the mayor and finance staff detail major budget pressures — health care, collective bargaining, and revaluation — and asked each department to prepare a 10% reduced spending scenario with risks spelled out.
Norwalk’s Board of Estimate and Taxation (BET) opened the first of several focused budget-review meetings on March 3, with Mayor Smith and finance staff outlining drivers behind a sharply higher proposed spending plan and the BET chair instructing departments to prepare alternate budgets trimmed by 10%.
Mayor Smith told the board the initial numbers are “striking” and urged members to pair rigorous scrutiny with strategic investments, citing three large, partly uncontrollable drivers: rising health-care costs, the timing of recently negotiated collective bargaining agreements and the multi-year property revaluation phase-in. “Sometimes responsible leadership does mean recognizing that…
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