Ciarrocca to Continue Echausse/Caruana Budget Process

The budget writing process developed by two former councilmen will be utilized in the development of the 2010 municipal spending plan.

Councilman Mark Ciarrocca, the new chairman of the finance policy committee, said he plans to utilize the same process used by his two immediate predecessors as chairman of the budget writing panel, former Councilmen Peter Echausse and Sal Caruana.

This process will start with meeting with the town auditors at the beginning of February in order to review the audit of the 2009 budget and listen to recommendations. Following this the finance committee will review actual revenue from 2009 against projected revenue in order to develop a revenue forecast for 2010.

"Once we have an opportunity to meet with the auditors we will meet with the department heads," Ciarrocca said.

The finance committee will meet every Tuesday night for the next several months to interview the department heads and start hammering out a spending plan. Meetings will be planned for most Thursday nights, along with some Saturday mornings. The finance committee is known as the Council committee with the most meetings.

Ciarrocca is also scheduling one additional meeting for himself in the coming weeks. He plans to sit down with Caruana to discuss the budget with the former finance committee chairman and to seek any input Caruana would like to give on the next spending plan.

"From a process standpoint I won't change from how Pete and Sal have run it," Ciarrocca said.