In response to citizen petition, New London council trims $50K from budget

New London ― The City Council on Monday voted unanimously to trim $50,000 from a previously approved general government budget in the wake of a citizen petition calling for the 2024-25 spending plan to be either repealed or sent to a referendum vote.

The savings will be taken from the police department’s budget by postponing the hiring of a new deputy police chief, Finance Director David McBride said.

“Instead of hiring now, we put it off until no earlier than Oct. 1,” he said. “That gives us three months of salary, health care and other benefit savings.”

The council in May approved a $56.7 million city budget and a $47.4 million education spending plan that, when combined with the results of a recent property revaluation, dropped the tax rate from 37.2 to 27.5 mills.

Monday’s reduction drops the tax rate further to 27.47 mills. Since July tax bills were already sent out, savings from the new tax rate will be applied to taxpayers’ January bills, McBride said.

The City Clerk’s Office in June certified a 299-signature petition calling for the general government budget to be modified. Petition circulators included prominent members of the New London Republican Town Committee.

The last general government budget-related petition was filed in 2018 and led to the council repealing a $49.86 million spending plan in favor of a $49.44 million budget.

Postponement “not the desired course of action”

Chief Brian Wright said putting off the naming of a deputy chief for months isn’t his “desired course of action.”

“But we’ll work within the confines of what’s being established,” he said hours before the council met on Monday. “I don’t know of any other major department – the fire department, public works – that doesn’t have a deputy chief.”

Wright said the department has not formally possessed an officer who is second in command during his three-year tenure, or during that of his predecessor Peter Reichard, who served for four years before his retirement in 2021.

Wright said he’s refining an updated job description for the deputy chief job that will include certain internal investigation and programming oversight duties.

“Having that deputy chief will shift some of the workload off the chief and the captains,” Wright said. “The goal is to find the most qualified individual for the job.”

j.penney@theday.com