Salem financial officials have put the town’s departments on notice to tighten their belts as fuel prices dip deeply into municipal budgets.

After a budget shortfall from the increased cost of fuel of $150,000 already this year, town finance officials are asking the “big three” departments – fire, police and public works – to keep an eye on their spending in order to make up the deficit.

“Police, DPW, fire – they are all on top of it,” said Jane Savastano, finance director for Salem. “They understand completely. They’re doing their best not to spend on their other lines without interfering with public safety.”

About $80,000 of that shortfall has come from the Police Department. According to Capt. William Teuber, officers are taking steps to cut back on their own fuel consumption without putting public safety at risk.

“We have been told to watch how much gas we’re using,” Teuber said. “If we’re not using the car, we shut them off. Rarely do we have cars just sitting there being idle.”

While police officers have begun turning off the air conditioning of their vehicles to increase fuel efficiency when on patrol and no longer keep vehicles idling while filing reports, Teuber does not think there is much more that can be done short of placing mileage limits on officers out on the road.

“If the guys are parked on the side of the road, you can’t shut the car off, the radio doesn’t work,” he said. “The car has to be running if we’re on patrol; we’re out on the road. We’re a pretty big town. We have guys all over different routes in the town.”

Due to the weight of the vehicles and the amount of equipment inside, Salem’s police cruisers get around 15 miles for every gallon of gasoline. While the department is currently looking at Dodge or Chevrolet manufactured police cruisers for the future, the difference would only be a few extra miles per gallon.

The addition of two new Harley-Davidson motorcycles to the department in the fall should take some pressure off of the budget, according to Teuber. Until then, he said, the department had enough funds left unused to cover the added expense of high pump prices.

“We’re under budget right now. Looks like we’re going to have enough money to cover it,” he said, but warned that the department could go through as much as $10,000 in investigation costs if a serious crime was committed in the town.

The Police Department is already planning to ask for a $78,000 increase to offset fuel and heating costs next year.

According to Dave Wholley, operations manager at the Salem Department of Public Works, department resources have been better allocated to keep their operational costs down, but budget shortfalls have not kept them from keeping up on maintenance or completing repairs.

“Our work has to get done. Obviously, we understand that there is going to be a shortfall somewhere, but operationally, when there is a basin collapsed, we’ve got to fix it,” he said. “We are trying to be as efficient as possible.”

Unless a project presents a public safety hazard, the department may hold off on completing a job until they can do three or four other projects at the same time in the same area, Wholley said. The policy, designed to increase efficiency, has been practiced by the department in the past.

Looking toward the future, Savastano is budgeting for a little higher than the current cost of gasoline for next year. At the moment Savastano is estimating gasoline at $3.96 a gallon and diesel at $5.00 for the 2009 fiscal year. Her figures also incorporate the three or four cents extra per gallon the town pays above the consumer price index as per their contract with their supplier.

Savastano has also built an escalator into the budget – not a part of this year’s budget, which was unprepared for gas prices to jump nearly $1.50 more than estimated – in case fuel prices increase further.

“This is the first year that this (shortfall) has happened,” Savastano said. “We had budgeted really low – diesel was $2.61 a gallon in our budget (in FY ’08). We’re really conservative about our budget proposals this year.”