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An Interesting Two Years

Now that the election is over, I can resume my bi-weekly updates. I’d like to thank the people of Madison for re-electing me as first selectman. It is both an honor and a privilege to serve the Town of Madison in this capacity.

It’s been an interesting two years. We’ve dealt with uncertainty from the state that affected our budgeting for the last two years as well as the normal and abnormal problems that crop up day to day.

In my first term we made a lot of internal improvements to the way our town runs. We created efficiencies and looked for ways to save money. We were able to do more with less (cash) by leasing trucks that had to be retired prematurely. There are some agreements for services that haven’t been out to bid for as long as anyone in Town Hall can remember. We started a systematic review of those and are going out or have gone out for proposals to see where we can save money. We’ve started initiatives around our employee benefits to lower costs with wellness programs and creating incentives within our plans. Our health insurance, which went up $1,500,000 when I first came into office two years ago, will come in flat this year. Employee life insurance costs will actually go down.

We’ve got the field houses at Strong Field pretty much completed, so they can be used in the spring. The part that wasn’t anticipated was that the finishing touches, like landscaping and other components of the infrastructure, weren’t contemplated for completion in the plans and were never included in the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP). We’ll be addressing that as the CIP committee reconvenes.

The Downtown Center Project continues to progress, though I don’t think anyone anticipated many of the details that have cropped up to cause delays. The easements, which have held up our progress in so many ways, are being worked out. The poles will come down! Though if there’s one thing I learned in my first two years, it’s not to predict the completion of anything. The Downtown Project and the Herbert Grove Baseball Field are two glaring examples. When you don’t have control over all aspects of the project, you can’t predict the outcome.

Going forward, we need to complete several projects that have been started and not finished and be very careful about starting any new ones. One that is already funded by a state grant and needs to be done because of a state-mandated deadline is closing the septage lagoons on Ridge Road. Originally contemplated as a town-run project, we will use the funds to contract the job out and use our in-house talent to finish off other projects, like the closeout of the environmental remediation of the School Bus Facility that began 10 years ago.

I look forward to continuing to grow in this job and improving the operations of this already great town.