Saugus Fire Dept. gains $50G in overtime account

SAUGUS – Saugus Fire Chief James Blanchard said he was “ecstatic” after Town Meeting voted 40-5 to add $50,000 back to the fire department’s overtime account Monday night.”Nothing good happens when you wait,” said Blanchard. “I had a firm commitment from the Finance Committee when they cut my budget, that when monies became available, they would put the priority on public safety. To see the support I got in there I really feel elated.”The money will come from the $1.3 million in free cash from fiscal year 2011. The free cash account is the total available unrestricted funds left over from the previous year.Blanchard said the $50,000 will bring the department’s budget back to its 2010 levels.”I’m not asking for more money,” said Blanchard. “The money I’m asking for is the same money I had last year. It’s a level-funded budget.”Town Meeting member Maureen Dever put forward a motion to refer article 10 to the next town meeting, but that motion was voted down 33-12. A similar motion by Dever on article 9, to add $50,000 to the Police Department’s overtime account, however, passed 26-19.”It seems like they’re spending every conceivable dime, without the total picture in front of us,” said Dever. “I remind this body that we can meet any time at the call of the selectmen to address any emergency issues. We are spending every single dime.”Dever said she wanted to see more money given to the schools.”We underfunded the schools by a substantial amount of money which resulted in layoffs,” said Dever. “One of the things we were told ? was that money became available, money would be put toward the school. You see tonight there is no article in this warrant to put money toward the school, and yet we’re funding overtime accounts that have a substantial amount of money in them.”There were a total of 22 articles on the warrant for Monday’s Special Town Meeting. Some of the articles that passed include appropriating $655,166 for the town’s group health fund, $343,800 for the vocational school assessment, $133,400 for unemployment compensation, $85,000 for medicare taxes and $78,725 for tax title appropriation.Town Meeting voted unanimously to refer article 5, money for the building maintenance account, article 8, money for legal expenses and article 9, money for police overtime to the next Town Meeting.Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter @MattTempesta.