Democrat officials delay and walk out of Greenwich budget meeting
- Guy
- Apr 1
- 1 min read
Updated: Apr 2
Tuesday, April 1, was the long scheduled public meeting of the 12-member elected Greenwich budget board (Board of Estimate and Taxation - BET). Six members of the BET are Democrats and six are Republicans, with the Republican chair holding the tie braking vote.
At the start of the public meeting at 9am, the Democrats called for a 2-hour adjournment to discuss amendments that they claimed came in too late for review. The Republicans agreed to allow the break. After almost 3 hours, at 11:57 am, the Democrats walked back into the meeting, declaring that they still needed more time and demanded that the meeting be reconvened to Thursday, April 3 at 8 am. When the Republicans disagreed with the further delay, the Democrats walked out, preventing the quorum needed to conduct business for the day.
Update: Greenwich Republican BET members followed up with a statement here about the hard effort required to cap the runaway spending proposed by the Democrats who are ready to support a nearly 6% overall tax increase (higher than any increase over the last 10 years).
Greenwich Democrat BET members issued a statement here calling the Republican cuts "draconian" particularly for the public school budget request (which is 5.1% more than last year, well above other town departments).
Between the Lines: If this was an April Fool's stunt by the Democrats, it was not funny. Keeping expenses in line to protect taxpayers against organized unions, is a tough process for this volunteer board. It's only made harder by theatrics.
