With very little money left to allocate before eclipsing the 4% tax levy limit that is set by the state, the Warren Town Council unanimously requested for Town Manager Kate Michaud to find $20,000 in cuts throughout the approximately $26.2 million budget in order to boost the salaries of certain non-union town employees (department heads, essentially) to bring them to a level more in line with surrounding communities.

The request occurred during the second preliminary budget meeting on Wednesday, March 29. While the budget has not been finalized, the Council worked through all department requests, anticipated revenues, and capital requests throughout the past two preliminary meetings. During the March 29 meeting, various amendments to the Town Manager’s suggested allocations were proposed and approved, which will need to be finalized during the next meeting on April 11 (a charter change during last year’s election changed the deadline for a preliminary budget to be due, from April 1 in prior years to April 15 this year).

A ‘raise’ or not a raise?
After last budget meeting featured a plea from the town’s Tax Assessor, Kristopher Leadem, regarding what he found to be ample evidence that his own position and many others throughout the town government leadership were not paid comparatively well when looking at surrounding communities, Town Councilman Joe DePasquale broke the ice by essentially agreeing that low pay for department heads was something he wanted to address.

“This is trying to bring things to a position that will hold merit when these positions become vacant and you try to bring in new staff. And, I think, keep people here,” he said. “You value the people you have working here. It’s a human capital investment. They’re here. I believe that we should show some kind of increase in their salary, and any attempt to do that, I think, would be helpful.”

DePasquale suggested the idea to make room in the budget for increases by nixing plans to convert a part-time position within the Town Clerk’s office into a full-time position. Some quick math found that would save around $20,000, but immediately generated some disagreement among other members of the Council — who argued that the Town Clerk asked for the full-time position for a reason.

“I’m looking at our clerk and deputy clerk, who have been asking for this full-time employee for I don’t know how many budget cycles, and would be deeply impacted by the loss of that full-time person and going back to a part-time person. It just hasn’t been working for them,” said Councilwoman Keri Cronin.

Town Manager Michaud added that next year was going to a particularly challenging year, with a special election held for the empty Congressional seat vacated by David Cicilline becoming necessary.

With some more back and forth ensuing among the members of the Council, it was ultimately decided to retain the full-time position for the clerk’s office, but also to request Michaud to find $20,000 in cuts elsewhere in the budget to utilize for increases to department heads’ salaries — though DePasquale bristled at the notion of calling such increases “raises.”

“I’m not looking at what I’m doing here as a raise,” he said. “I believe that when it’s looked at that way, it’s out of context. This isn’t a raise. We’ve been struggling for years in trying to figure out, without giving a raise…for how to bring these departments up to a fair market rate based on our neighbors. That’s what this proposal was. It may not be ideal, but that’s what this was.”

The details of where Michaud finds those cuts, and which positions would potentially be getting what increases, will be discussed more in depth during the April 11 meeting.

Money set aside for a mural
As with the discussion regarding potentially increasing salaries for department heads, it was DePasquale who kicked off lively discussion regarding a proposed mural on the town’s wastewater treatment facility. DePasquale motioned to set aside $5,000 for that project. “I want to get this done before I die,” he said.

However, DePasquale received pushback because in his proposal, he indicated having an artist already in mind to complete the mural, while others on the Council wanted to leave that selection up to the Arts and Cultural Commission.

“Im very much in favor of seeing a mural happen or something to enhance the exterior of the wastewater treatment plant,” said Cronin. “I think that is a wonderful idea and I think that is something we’ve been talking about for a long time. I hate to see it attached to a specific artist or a specific idea without using the Warren Arts and Cultural Commission, a group that we appointed to do just this work.”

Ultimately, at the behest of Council President John Hanley, the council ceased talk on how to delineate the task of choosing a muralist and focused on whether or not to approve the allocation of $5,000 to complete the project — which they unanimously agreed upon.