East Lyme — Kicking off this year’s budget season, First Selectman Mark Nickerson proposed his 2020-21 town spending plan to the Board of Selectmen last week, pitching to increase funding for emergency services by adding more staffing to those departments, while also expanding information technology services.

Nickerson’s proposed budget is about $26 million, which is $1.11 million, or 4.46 percent, more than the town's current $24.9 million spending plan. That does not include the proposed $52 million school spending plan, which has not yet been approved by the Board of Education.

Factor in the Board of Education’s proposed budget and the total town budget, which includes debt service and capital spending, is about $78 million, or $4.1 million more than this year's spending plan.

Both budgets must go through their own approval processes with the Board of Selectmen and Board of Education, and then before the Board of Finance. Nickerson said he expects his proposed budget to change as the town moves through its budget process and as it receives more definitive details on revenue and state aid, which he said he believes will significantly help balance the proposed numbers. Specifically, Nickerson pointed out soon-to-be incoming revenue from the Gateway development, which opened a Costco store in town last fall.

The governor’s proposed 2020-21 budget has not predicted major cuts in municipal aid grants for the town but does outline a $183,365 decrease in the town’s Education Cost Sharing grant next year.

“It’s a hefty budget and we expect to have more community conversation,” Nickerson said Monday, referring to his proposed budget. “There is a cost of living in a quality town that values education.”

“Municipalities in Connecticut have been struggling for over a decade,” Nickerson wrote in his budget proposal letter to the town last week. “The balance of providing quality education, top-rate town service, and protecting our property values (grand list) is extremely challenging. This year’s budget was especially difficult to bring together. Many departments and town services need attention, revamping, and upgrades.”

Of the biggest proposed increases, Nickerson calls for adding staffing to the town’s police, fire and dispatch forces, factoring in enough to pay for two new police officers, as well as more part-time firefighters. The police budget is proposed to increase approximately $237,000 — a 9.15 percent hike — while the Flanders Fire Department is to receive an additional $26,420, and Niantic Fire Department, $56,240, to pay for hours previously covered by volunteers.

“Volunteers are scarce and it’s a national problem,” Nickerson said. “We have done a great thing by having the ambulance pay for overnight (firefighter) hours, but we need to prepare ourselves for the eventual full-time status of the fire departments, and that is coming.”

He was referring to a deal the town worked out last year with its two fire departments and the independent East Lyme Ambulance Association to hire and split the costs for two full-time firefighters who would work overnight shifts. The move came after several towns in the region last year began to address federal labor laws dictating that town employees may not perform "volunteer services for the same entity by which they are employed."

East Lyme and its fire departments have not, until now, taken a hard stance or action on the Fair Labor Standards Act, keeping with the status quo even as other towns, such as Montville and Waterford, have, on the advice of attorneys, forced firefighters to pick either to serve as volunteers or work as paid part-timers.

“We are waiting for case law to push us there,” Nickerson said. “Right now, we are concerned. It is sitting out there. In the meantime, we have to increase our fire budget. Every year, we will be putting more and more money into our fire departments because what was once a volunteer system just isn’t there anymore.”

Nickerson also has proposed purchasing a $700,000 firetruck after the Flanders' Fire Department truck "died" a few months ago, forcing the town to use a loaned vehicle. The purchase would be bonded over a 20-year period, Finance Director Anna Johnson said.

Nickerson also budgeted an additional $21,588 to pay full-time dispatchers overtime hours as need be, he said, because it has been difficult to find and hire part-time dispatchers to work those additional hours.

Approximately $114,300 has been proposed toward paying for additional information technology consulting and coverage. That coverage may be awarded to the town’s IT vendor, Star Computers, Johnson said, but the town would need to make a decision about that in the future.

Nickerson said the added hours would go toward ensuring all IT systems are running properly 24/7, which is essential for public safety departments that rely on these systems, he said.

“We have made it this long with individual departments handling their own IT issues and leaning on an outside contractor to come in and put (Band-Aids) on more complicated solutions,” Nickerson wrote in his letter. “But we desperately need more.”

The Board of Selectmen will review Nickerson’s proposed budget over the coming month before it is presented to the Board of Finance, which then will make further decisions and changes before the budget goes to public hearing in the spring. Residents later will vote on the budget at a referendum.

m.biekert@theday.com