You can tell a lot about a town and its values as well as gain new insights about the economy as a whole by attending town operating budget presentations. In Woodbridge, these presentations are spread over three nights. The first presentations took place Tuesday evening.

Sitting around the tables were members of the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Finance. There was a small table for the people presenting the budgets and seats for maybe a dozen spectators. Three cameras were set up to record and broadcast live the meeting.

As I entered, I was greeted by various members of the community; Police Chief Marcucci, Selectwoman Beth Heller, and WGATV coordinator Pua Ford. With the exception of people preparing to present, the spectators’ seats were empty. Finance Board Chairman Matthew Giglietti started off the meeting recognizing that we are in difficult economic times and the budget needs to be trimmed.

First up was Fire Chief Andrew Esposito. Woodbridge has a new firehouse. It was designed to be a ‘green’ building. During 2011, the warrantees will be up on some of the equipment bought for the building and the ongoing support costs for these items will increase. It is not clear yet exactly how energy efficient the new building is, and the oil budget is an estimate.

Chief Esposito noted that there are currently 53 active members of the department. This is resulting in the need for more funds for training, and that the State, because of its budget cutbacks no longer funds half of the training costs for local fire departments. The issue of decreased state funding and fewer grants available was an ongoing theme of the presentations.

There was also a discussion about the need for first aid supplies, something that has been lacking since Woodbridge ceased to have a local ambulance.

The next presentation was Police Chief Gene Marcucci. The largest proposed budget increase for the police department was to get a police dog. It was explained that a police dog would be useful for finding lost children, as was an issue just this past week, or for finding lost elderly people. It was noted that there are three Alzheimer care units in Woodbridge and many senior citizens.

The third presentation was from Pua Ford of WGATV. She discussed the professional development item which would allow funds for her to attend a national conference on public access television. She spoke about the issues she would hope to learn more about from the conference. There was a discussion about how many people watch WGATV programs on TV or check the programs out of the library. While there was no clear data available, there was anecdotal evidence that the programs are well received. In fact, during the meeting, I received a text message from one person in town who had just tuned in the meeting and later when I arrived home there was an email from another person who specifically tuned in to watch the meeting. I am glad to know that others were watching online, it made the spectator chairs at the meeting feel a little less empty.

Several smaller budget items were then discussed. As technology for the town was considered, Ann Rubin asked if there were possible savings by combining technology budgets of the town and the fire department. It is worth looking into, or perhaps even having a technology oversight committee for all town technology. There was a discussion about banking costs increasing for the town and whether more checks could be written online.

The Human Services budget presentation talked about the increased needs of people in the Town of Woodbridge during these difficult economic times and again raised the issue of the decreased availability of grants. Many great programs made available by Human Services were discussed as well as efforts to work with the Recreation Department and the Town Library.

The Building Department spoke about their budget and the fees that they take in. The idea of having a different fee structure for residential and commercial buildings was discussed and will be considered at a later time, although Selectwoman Beth Heller expressed concern about whether such a move might discourage economic development. For Town Planning and Zoning, there was a discussion about revising the rules about signs. Signs are the biggest issue that TPZ faces, and the rules are not particularly clear. Almost every sign on Amity Road is an exception of one sort or another.

Another sign of the difficult economic times was the discussions of the Tax Collector and Tax Assessor. Assessments are down, but people need to remember it is still going to cost the same amount to run the town. Woodbridge Tax Collector Pat Crisco spoke about tax payments coming in. There was an involved discussion about how the town tries to work with people that are delinquent on their property taxes so as to avoid having to place a lien on the property or send a house into foreclosure.

The Parks Department ended off the meeting with a discussion about equipment that needs to be replaced. This topic had also been brought up by Human Services and the Building Department. The Parks Department had been moved to this Tuesday so that there would be more time available next Tuesday to discuss the Woodbridge Board of Education budget.

It was interesting to note that during all of the discussions, there was no reference to comparing the cost per resident of various services to that of surrounding towns. Perhaps the closest to this was a comparison of building fee structures.

The next operating budget presentation will be on Thursday and hopefully many of the residents of Woodbridge will attend or watch the presentations on WGATV.

(Cross posted at the Woodbridge Citizen.)