A public hearing was held July 6 to debate the changes to ordinances, which includes altering income limits for elderly and disabled tax relief.

Currently, homeowners have to earn less than $50,000 for single people and $75,000 for married couples to qualify for the credit.

The Board of Selectman proposed lowering the income limit for married couples to $55,000, putting it more in line with the rest of the state. The ordinance specifies a credit not to exceed $500 per applicant.

The state income limit is $35,000, according to First Selectman Susan Cable.

“Beacon Falls has been extremely generous on this,” Cable said.

Residents also brought up another provision that specified that the total tax credits doled out by the town cannot exceed 0.05 percent of the prior year’s total real estate tax. If the Board of Selectman had followed the ordinance this year, the maximum credit would have only been $275 because of the tight budget, according to Selectman Michael Krenesky. However, seniors will still receive the full $500 this year because the board previously voted to waive that requirement.

At the regular July 11 meeting of the Board of Selectmen, the board voted to take this provision limiting the benefit out of the ordinance, as part of the proposed changes to the ordinance.

The elderly and disabled tax credit costs the town about $150,000, according to Cable. This year, 122 of 302 applicants had an income over $55,000, which would no longer qualify for the benefit if the changes go through.

In addition to the senior and disabled tax credit, the Board of Selectman proposed changes to the ordinance for tax relief for volunteer firefighters, emergency medical technicians, paramedics or ambulance drivers.

Under the current ordinance, volunteer emergency personnel can earn a tax credit of up to $1,000 based on number of years of service.

The proposed changes would allow volunteers, who are in active military service, to still qualify for the tax relief. Also, individuals over the age of 65 who have completed 20 years of service would receive the maximum benefit for the rest of their lives. The benefit would be passed on to the surviving spouse upon the death of the participant. Anyone currently collecting benefits would qualify for the permanent tax relief.

Cable said some older volunteers were worried about losing their credit when they couldn’t volunteer any more.

“We didn’t want them to loose out on this benefit,” Cable said.

Six volunteers would qualify for the program if it was implemented this year, with that number projected to rise to 25 in 2035.

The program currently costs the town about $25,000.

Another change to the ordinance would specify that the chief executive officer of the volunteer organization provide a list of eligible members to the Service Award Committee to review before submitting it to the Assessor’s office.

The third proposed change ordinance would eliminate an ordinance establishing training and hourly requirements for elected members of the Board of Assessors. The ordinance is no longer necessary because the Board of Assessors is a defunct group, Cable said. The town hires a certified assessor and assistant assessor.

A town meeting is scheduled for July 25 at 7 p.m. at Town Hall to vote on the changes.

The agency lost a roughly $210,000 grant from the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services this year, as the state cut about $2 million in grant funding for mental health and substance abuse services. Clisham said she’s already made layoffs and stretched HRD’s grant-funded budget to its limits.

“That grant we lost was a pretty big one that stayed a lot of the monies we need to run the agency,” Clisham said.

Though $20,000—less than 5 percent of HRD’s approximately $385,000 yearly operating budget—may seem too small a sum to be a deal-breaker, Clisham said most of the year’s revenue is already spoken for, as grants are generally disbursed for a specific purpose.

“When you’re working with grants, you’re working with percentages of everything,” she said. “You always do it that way; you have to do it that way.”

And usage restrictions on grant monies, Clisham said, leave the agency capable of providing referral services and daily busing for the elderly and disabled—but unable to cover administrative costs and even basic utilities on the 575 Rubber Avenue property.

At their meeting last week, Clisham presented her request to the joint boards of Mayor and Burgesses and Finance, who tabled the decision until January’s meeting, in light of lingering reservations.

First of all, they wondered, would a $20,000 discretionary supplement turn into $25,000 next year and $30,000 the year after that, and so on into perpetuity? After all, that grant money would most likely never come back.

Clisham offered an assurance that there are always grant dollars to be found, and that HRD will “never stop looking for [them].”

Secondly, borough officials asked, if paying the utilities is the real problem for HRD, can it not sell its property and work out of a borough-owned building, where those expenses are already accounted for? The agency employs a small staff, and officials thought some departments might have the space to subsume them.

Clisham doesn’t see a move and co-op provision as being a feasible option. She thinks most borough buildings are already at capacity.

Her feeling seems to be that, as HRD basically picked up the pieces when the Welfare Department was dismantled, the borough should have no problem justifying a payout to ensure the services stay active.

Those services include a daily bus service between Naugatuck and Waterbury, for people in need. Drivers—Democratic Burgess Anthony Campbell among them—bus seniors and the disabled to chemotherapy, dialysis, doctors’ appointments, and so on.

In addition, HRD refers in-need clients to other social services programs and acts as an intermediary for clothing, food, and toy drives.

“You have to be here to understand that it’s not good,” Clisham said of the situations some of her clients face. “I don’t think people understand how bad it is … but what we do is important, and we do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

No, she doesn’t have an ongoing problem with trespassers or burglars, nor is she on parole and required to check in.

She’s participating in Good Morning Naugatuck, the department’s program to help seniors and others in need by making sure they’re well every morning.

Participants phone in before 10:00 a.m. every day. If the police don’t hear from someone on their list, they’ll call their house as well as listed emergency contacts to evaluate the situation.

Administrative Lieutenant Bob Harrison said often they won’t get calls, but most of the time it’s a simple matter of forgetfulness.

Occasionally, though, calls to a senior’s house go unanswered and emergency contacts don’t know why. In this case, a patrolman is sent to that person’s home to assist them in any way needed. Often police will knock on neighbors’ doors to see if perhaps the participant was seen leaving the house.

“We’ve been known to go to stores or hairdressers to track them down,” Harrison said.

Otherwise police will enter the home to see what assistance is needed.

The most common problem is participants who fall and cannot get up.

“It’s very much a help … and gives me peace of mind,” Natowich said, “On several occasions I’ve fallen” and the police helped by identifying the problem and getting an ambulance.

Harrison told the story of one participant who had fallen down the stairs the previous night and was helped in the morning when she didn’t answer Good Morning Naugatuck calls.

Dispatchers Kelly Orsini and Diane Dutton handle the program every morning, and Harrison says the only drawback to the service is that callers often seem lonely and might want to chat— but the police lines must be kept open for emergency calls.

Dutton also said that it’s hard not to get personally involved with program participants, and if something happens to them, the news might have a depressing effect.

“These people are like my aunts,” Dutton quipped. “I talk to them more than I talk to my mother.”

Harrison said the feedback for the program has been entirely positive.