WILTON — The Board of Selectpersons has unanimously approved the Waste Treatment Department’s budget of $491,911 for 2015-16.
The amount represents a 72.1 percent increase over the 2014-15 amount of $285,907, Clayton Putnam, department superintendent, said.
The higher budget is not going to mean an immediate rate increase for customers, Putnam said after the meeting. The next potential rate increase is not expected to happen until 2018.
After voters agreed to upgrade the aging, 30-plus-year-old wastewater treatment plant, customers had a rate increase. A minimal user’s bill went from $64 to $104 in 2012, he said. It was the first rate increase since 1987.
Bids for the second phase of the upgrade went out July 4 and will be opened Aug. 4, he told the board. Plant construction is expected to take place next year.
Initially bids were expected to go out last fall.
“We thought we’d be under construction if not nearing the end,” he said.
The first phase included renovation of 30 pump stations and work on a section of the plant.
Putnam discussed items that impacted the budget, including his retirement as superintendent of the water and wastewater departments.
Putnam, who will be 66 this fall, will retire at the end of the year. The two departments will split costs to compensate his earned sick and vacation time and provide a month’s training with him for the new superintendent.
The town will start advertising his position by late July, Town Manager Rhonda Irish said.
A $198,000 first debt payment on the upgrade also factors into the budget, Putnam said. That amount, paid from reserves, reduces it.
Putnam and former Superintendent Russell Mathers started working for the town in 1988. Putnam became superintendent after Mathers died in 2011.
“We came from IP (International Paper) and never went back,” he said of the mill strike.
About his work in Wilton he said, “It has been fun, good and a blessing.”
abryant@sunmediagroup.net
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