GREENFIELD — In a meeting that was continued to Thursday, City Council voted on several reductions to the fiscal year 2024 budget, including $125,000 from the Police Department’s wages and salaries line and $87,500 from the dispatchers’ wages and salaries line.

In both cases, councilors and city officials were at odds over factoring in grants for these line items in the operating budget. While the $375,000 COPS Hiring Program grant was expected to restore the department to full staffing following previous budget cuts, that may not be possible with the wage and salary reduction.

“Because we’ve just hired the officers and haven’t submitted our first quarterly report and received our first allotment, we don’t know exactly how the [COPS Hiring Program grant] is going to be implemented,” Finance Director Diane Schindler explained on Wednesday, speaking, in particular, to the police wages line. “It depends on the actual costs. They’re only reimbursing our actual costs.”

Budget conversations began last month when Mayor Roxann Wedegartner submitted a $61.6 million budget proposal for FY24, representing a 6.5% increase over the current budget of $57.9 million.

Schindler emphasized Wednesday night that no additional money was added to the operating budget for wages and salaries of the 34 police officers, three of whom will be funded by the federal grant. Those three officers will be paid for out of the wages and salaries line item, after which expenses will be transferred back from the grant.

“I think [cutting] $125,000 is still damaging to the progress of the Police Department,” said Precinct 9 Councilor Derek Helie. “I think our Police Department has done a phenomenal job dealing with the situation they were put in last year with the budget cuts.”

Helie was referencing City Council’s $425,000 cut to the department’s fiscal year 2023 budget, which included $400,000 from salaries.

“Penalizing them … feels like an unfair shake in my opinion,” he said.

City Council President Dan Guin noted that the $125,000 reduction could jeopardize the city’s ability to use the grant, a concern also outlined by Schindler in an email to councilors on the impacts of each cut proposed earlier this month by the Ways & Means Committee.

Still, some councilors questioned the accounting of the grant in the operating budget. Precinct 3 Councilor Virginia “Ginny” DeSorgher said that in other cities, such as Chelsea, the funding from the COPS grant is clearly defined in the city’s FY24 budget.

“I have a real problem with how we’re doing grants,” she said. “I don’t think it’s fair to appropriate for money you are receiving.”

Ultimately, eight councilors voted in support of reducing $125,000 from the Police Department’s wages and salaries line, with five voting against the reduction. Dissenting votes included Guin, Helie, At-Large Councilor Christine Forgey, At-Large Councilor Penny Ricketts and At-Large Councilor Phil Elmer.

A similar conversation followed with the wages line item for dispatchers. Forgey said while she agreed with the rationale given at the Ways & Means Committee meeting for the reduction, she had since learned how the state’s Support and Incentive Grant (also known as the 911 grant) is being applied, and while she doesn’t agree that it’s being done in a transparent way, she felt reducing the line item would be a “disservice to our dispatch people.”

In her memo to councilors, Schindler noted the reduction could mean the layoff of at least one dispatcher and renegotiating the schedule.

Other departments to receive reductions include the Department of Community and Economic Development. Councilors voted by majority in support of reducing the wages and salaries line item for the department by $34,334, with the recommendation that the director position be funded 50% by the city and 50% by a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG).

According to Wedegartner, the position has previously been funded 60% by the grant and 40% by the city. Her proposed budget, however, aimed to remove the grant portion, which would allow involvement in marijuana-related business development. Federal funding cannot be used to support municipal positions working in this area of community development.

“At the end of the day, in Greenfield and elsewhere in the community, the marijuana industry is a legitimate agricultural industry,” Wedegartner said.

The expenditure line item was also reduced by $25,000, with the justification that the department has seen significant increases in the past two fiscal years.

Reductions were also made to legal services, central maintenance expenditures and energy department expenditures, the last two of which councilors said were a reflection of the Leavitt-Hovey House going offline soon, as the Greenfield Public Library prepares to move into the new building next door.

At 11 p.m., City Council motioned to continue the meeting to the following day. The School Department, among other budget items, remained to be discussed.

Other business

In other business Wednesday night, City Council unanimously approved all 10 of the projects recommended for Community Preservation Act funding.

The Ways & Means Committee voted on Tuesday to support the projects that had already been recommended by the Community Preservation Committee. They were among 14 projects initially proposed for funding this grant cycle.

The 14 project requests totaled $972,821, according to Community Preservation Committee Chair Travis Drury. Of the applications, $100,000 was for housing, $96,345 for historical preservation and $776,476 for recreation and open space. Greenfield has $335,000 to award for the 2022-2023 grant cycle.

Among the biggest projects to receive the final stamp of approval were a $100,000 request from Clinical & Support Options (CSO) to go toward the $23 million renovation and expansion of the Wells Street homeless shelter, a $75,000 request for Beacon Park improvements and a $50,000 request for a pickleball park expansion project.

The other seven projects approved for funding were a barn rehabilitation project at the Franklin County Fairgrounds, historical document preservation, equipment restoration at the Museum of Our Industrial Heritage, Highland Park/Temple Woods trail restoration, accessibility improvements at the Greenfield High School track, installation of a fitness cluster at Shattuck Park and adding site amenities to Recreation Department land.

Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne.

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