Town faced with budget deficit
By Angela Greiner Contributing Writer

Hudson - Executive Assistant Paul Blazer was faced with the task of proposing an unbalanced budget for fiscal year 2009 at the Board of Selectmen meeting Dec. 17, the first of two meetings scheduled to discuss the budget.

"It's not a rosy picture," Blazer said.

Before reviewing 17 of the proposed department budgets with the board, Blazer warned the selectmen that the proposed budget would exceed the projected revenues by over $2 million.

"I want to emphasize the remarkable cooperation of the department heads," Blazer said. "They all went back and made the cuts needed to get us to the level we are at, and there are no more cuts I can envision, but unfortunately we are not where we need to be."

The budget crisis is a new experience for town officials, who have become accustomed to a surplus. The biggest problem, Blazer explained, is decreasing revenue. The selectmen first projected that an impending deficit in 2003 with that year's drastic cuts in state aid. To compensate for the decreased state funding, the town chose to use excess funds to maintain a balanced budget; those funds have now run dry.

Several other factors, including the decline of new growth and school choice enrollment, have also contributed to the deficit.

"Towns and cities are on their own," Selectman Carl Leeber said. "We are not getting state aid … [The] state worries about [the] state first."

Blazer said the town might have to consider layoff s.

"It is an option we would have to look at if we do not get near that [desired] number," Blazer said.

Blazer did say that there are some areas, like the healthcare budget, that might save the town some money.

The town also has the option of considering the proposal of its first Proposition 2-1/2 override to create a balanced budget.

"We have not needed a [Proposition] 2-1/2 override in the past," Selectman Fred Lucy said, "but we have not been presented with an unbalanced budget in the past."

Lucy voted against all proposed department budgets that exceeded a 2.5 percent increase in funding.

In other news, the selectman entered into conversations with Verizon's Regional Director of Public Affairs Carol Baribeau to discuss future phone, Internet and television service to the community. Baribeau told the selectmen that Verizon will have all of the aboveground services available within eight months and predicted an August 2008 launch date.

The selectman were pleased that making Verizon available would end the monopoly that Comcast has had in town.

"Monopolies never work for the citizens," Selectman Joseph Durant said.

All of the local business and restaurants serving alcohol were part of the annual Police Department's sting operation to cut down on serving or selling liquor to minors. Of the more than 30 businesses tested, four - Lake Boone General Store, Buscemi's Convenience Store, Back Bay Restaurant and Charter Oak Country Club - received a one-day liquor license suspension for violating the law.