Weston Select Board reviews $819,000 in proposed budget reductions

WESTON — June 23, 2020 — Weston Select Board reviews $819,000 in proposed budget cuts as Finance Committee pushes for more. Town Manager Leon Gaumond presented department-by-department reductions including $250,000 in level-funded road construction, deferred sidewalk plow and fire protective clothing purchases, and 25 percent reductions to salary lines for two firefighters and a sustainability coordinator who cannot be hired on July 1 under the one-twelfth budget. Finance Committee member John Sally of 555 Wellesley Street said the cuts leave non-school spending at a 7.9 percent increase and asked the board to direct staff to build a prioritized service-reduction list; member Lisa Retano called the offered list "mostly a list of things we couldn't do anyway." Chair Chris Houston said he would defend the sustainability coordinator and assistant town planner "on the town meeting floor." The board also voted unanimously to convey the zero Wellesley Street parcel to the Affordable Housing Trust for up to six units of affordable home-ownership housing under Article 18 of the 2018 town meeting, and approved a Local Initiative Program application adding six Brook School Apartments units to the state Subsidized Housing Inventory.