Finance Board, Selectman Drawn Into Q&A At Hearing

By John Voket

Top officials in Newtown decided Wednesday night to bend protocol to accommodate residents looking to clarify issues related to the town’s financial management. What was supposed to be a one-sided finance board public hearing at the high school auditorium, where residents directly express concerns, or local officials make final pitches for support of programs, turned into a question and answer session involving municipal fiscal management and related directives under the current charter.

In recent weeks, several instances have occurred where the first selectman, council members, and other officials have disregarded procedural conventions restricting dialogue with citizens attending meetings to answer questions. Those questions have come from a core group of about a half-dozen residents who affiliate themselves with the public advocacy groups Friends of Newtown, Inside Newtown, or WeCAN – We Care About Newtown.

These three loosely-affiliated groups have emphasized issues related to the local school system, the future and current management of Fairfield Hills, town fiscal management in general. They have been increasingly critical of  First Selectman Herb Rosenthal and other town leaders at public meetings, in letters to The Bee, and in blog commentary on InsideNewtown.com.

The website is supported by local businessman Matt DeAngelis, who has said he is weighing a run for first selectman come November, and who is helping to organize independent political aspirants through his blog.

The first speaker Wednesday was school board member Andrew Buzzi, Jr, who heaved a Board of Education budget book onto the auditorium stage saying he was responding to questions and concerns expressed by Board of Finance Chairman John Kortze the night before during deliberations on the school district budget. Mr Buzzi referred to questions posed about a budget worksheet that refined specific answers related to the school budget.

“I asked for this,” Mr Buzzi said. He recalled when he first started on the board and was handed the 100-plus page school district budget, and said he wanted to clarify three basic aspects of the budget.

“I want to know some basic things about the budget. I want to know how much more I’m going to have to pay next year if we don’t pay for anything… just the things we are obligated to, what we are bound to contractually,” Mr Buzzi said.

The second part of the documentation related to expenses directly associated to the changing school population, and the third part encompassed everything else.

“In my mind, it was a simplistic way at least to look at what it is we were asking for,” he added. “I think those three simple questions are on the lips of just about every taxpayer who wants to know what we are doing with our budget.”

Contingencies And Reserves

The next speaker was resident Ruby Johnson, who asked questions about the difference between a budget line contingency fund and the reserve for noncapital recurring expenses. Mr Kortze looked to the first selectmen, who was seated in the audience, to answer the question.

Mr Rosenthal explained that the contingency fund incorporated a certain sum of money to settle labor contracts.

“We put that money in contingency so it isn’t identified so when we are negotiating with various labor groups they can’t really put their finger on how much money we are preparing to pay…negotiating against ourselves,” Mr Rosenthal said. The fund is also tapped in the case of bad winters when weather-related costs overextend the average budgeted amount, and when legal costs exceed an average budgeted amount.

The first selectman then talked about how the town’s bonding agency strongly recommends the maintenance of a noncapital recurring reserve fund in lieu of a charter restriction preventing the management of annual budget surpluses. This fund exists in part, as a condition to maintain the community’s favorable bond rating. which in turn keeps costs for borrowing and the related tax burden minimized.

Quoting from an article in The Bee, Ms Johnson then asked about why an anticipated state economic development grant for building demolition and mothballing at Fairfield Hills seemed redundant to another request for allocation in an anticipated December 2007 bond initiative. Again, Mr Kortze directed Mr Rosenthal or finance director Benjamin Spragg to answer the question if they cared to, but he noted that the dialogue was technically out of order.

“As you know, as a general rule, being a public hearing, we’re supposed to listen,” Mr Kortze said. “I’d be more than happy to let the first selectman respond or Ben [Spragg] if you want to respond. It’s kind of hard to get into a to-and-fro here as you know.”

Mr Rosenthal returned to the microphone saying the planned bond issue was an approved initiative that was authorized to move forward, while the grant from the state has yet to be included or approved by the state bond commission. He then pointed out that several grants were anticipated based on Newtown’s eligibility for the town-owned campus.

“If we don’t get [the grant] we will have to use some of the bond money for…demolition, playing field construction, mothballing, environmental cleanup, and so forth,” Mr Rosenthal said. “But we are anticipating getting those grants.”

PTA Leaders Urge

Support

Two local PTA leaders spoke, each calling for the finance board to support school programs. Richard Gains from Hawley Elementary School said he came to Newtown before his children were school-age, because of the school system’s positive reputation.

Mr Gains said as a taxpayer and property owner he was concerned about the fact that the high school was on a warning status for its accreditation. “It’s time for us to really take a stand and say education is important to Newtown,” Mr Gains said. “We want to maintain our accreditation and get back to where we can be proud of the educational position Newtown takes as part of our nation, and try to eliminate the declining educational expenditures we have seen in the past.”

Desiree Galassi, representing Middle Gate School PTA, said she came to specifically asked that the finance board “be cautious” in their cuts to the school, especially in regard to a computer system conversion at her facility.

Mr Kortze reminded Ms Galassi and the audience that his board by statute has no line item jurisdiction over the school board’s budget, and that any cuts to technology programs specifically would be made by the Board of Education when and if a single permitted bottom line reduction was affected by the Board of Finance.

Gianine Crowell, reading from a prepared statement, asked about two consulting firms connected to Fairfield Hills, and how much money was being paid to consultants working for DeMarco Management and North American Realty. She also asked if consultant fees related to the Economic Development Commission’s marketing of the technical office park were redundant or necessary.

This brought Mr Rosenthal to the front again to clarify that DeMarco Management was the operations vendor for the Fairfield Hills Authority charged with maintaining security, landscaping, and other related contracts, and that North American Realty was retained as a consultant to draft marketing strategies and advise on how to structure leases in case the town can encourage private invest at the former state hospital facility.

Po Murray and Gary Davis, co-founders of WeCAN, both took a turn at the microphone. Ms Murray presented more questions she felt required answering by the finance board as they finalized their budget recommendations to the council.

“Before you make your decision on the budget tomorrow night, please answer the following questions, and I have them written down for you, I know how you like these questions,” Ms Murray said before requesting the published budget notice fully explain which bond initiatives are tied to specific projects.

Mr Davis later followed up by asking the Board of Finance authorize publishing the full-length townwide budget proposal book on the town website.

“I’m not here to talk about particulars of the budget,” Mr Davis said, referencing instead the Board of Education’s budget book. Mr Davis claimed if residents went looking for a similar budget document at town hall, “you can’t find one. I don’t think there is one available, if there is I don’t know of it.”

He suggested that the finance board post the full line-by-line recommendation to the council so residents could be better informed before the council’s public hearing on the budget in the coming weeks.

“You’d be showing the town further transparency and showing you are doing your best for the taxpayers,” Mr Davis said.

Mr Kortze responded from the stage saying the town has come a long way in having municipal finance material up on the website, saying more could always be done and reminding Mr Davis that the finance board was all-volunteer, and probably did not have the resources to turn a large document around to the web immediately upon closing deliberations.

This brought Mr Davis back to the microphone suggesting with a $100 million budget the town could “spare enough money to hire a webmaster,” to maintain the website and administer the publishing of such documents.

“Corporations do it all the time. Maybe its time to recommend enough dollars…to have somebody really working on that site,” Mr Davis said.

After the meeting Mr Rosenthal said his office has never been approached by Mr Davis seeking a budget book or asking about its availability. Mr Spragg added that a complete budget book has been filed and maintained in the town clerk’s office for the past 25 years, and is readily available for anyone wishing to review it.

Fire Commissioner Kevin Cragin spent a few minutes defending a proposal to provide an hourly stipend to any volunteer firefighters responding to calls and training exercises as a means of enhancing recruitment and retention of responders. He noted that in the past 20 years, the town had doubled in population but the fire departments have about the same sized force as 40 years ago.

He also suggested maintaining a ready contingent of available responders, especially during daytime hours, would help insulate the town from possible future lawsuits that could be lodged if fire losses are tied to slow initial response by volunteers.

Joseph McEnaney closed out the hearing asking the finance board to get their arms around the full scope of anticipated future capital projects, so the public could be fully apprized of what was coming financially, instead of being “slowly boiled to death every year” by incremental tax increases.

The Board of Finance was scheduled to complete its budget deliberations after The Bee went to press Thursday, March 1.