Finance Bd OKs $96.58M Budget

By John Voket

On Wednesday evening the Newtown Board of Finance unanimously passed a townwide budget proposal of $96.58 million that would raise the current property tax rate to 27.8 mills.

Since a mill represents one dollar for every thousand dollars in assessed personal property, a home assessed at $250,000 would be taxed at about $6,950. That would represent a $425 increase for that home — a 6.5 percent tax hike.

While the action represents a critical stage in the budget process, that rate could still be affected once the Legislative Council formally begins deliberations, possibly as early as next Wednesday. Once the Council endorses a final number, taxpayers still have an opportunity to reject the proposal during a referendum set for April 25.

The finance board’s decision came after nearly three hours of discussion on a range of topics, and pointed questions to members of the Board of Education and the school administration, First Selectman Herb Rosenthal, and Fire Commission Chairman Kevin Cragin.

The meeting was complicated by the 11th-hour introduction of a nearly $5 million proposal, re-introducing a school district plan for the Hawley School heating and air conditioning project. A previous proposal was rejected last year by the Legislative Council.

Typically, the process of funding this type of “large ticket” expenditure would involve allocating debt service within the municipal side of the budget through the Board of Selectmen, even though this allocation would be for a school project. That request would then wind its way through a multitiered oversight process involving the finance board and council, before potentially going to the voters for approval.

But in the case of the Hawley HVAC renovation, an expenditure of $3.3 million was already approved by voters for allocation in the current budget. When the projected cost of the project nearly doubled, and the school board requested additional funds, the proposal was effectively killed by the council.

The school administration, however, apparently wanted to make a final attempt to tap the already approved $3.3 million by suggesting a two-year, phased-in timeline that would permit the second half of anticipated funding to be sought in next year’s budget, or developed through other sources.

After nearly an hour of discussion and repeated questions on specific motivations for what was described by finance board chairman John Kortze as an “unorthodox” means of resurrecting the Hawley proposal, the panel decided to take no action, thereby passing the decision to the Legislative Council for consideration.

Another substantial point of discussion revolved around the proposal for up to two paid firefighters who would respond immediately with apparatus the moment a fire call was registered. The selectmen included funding for either a single paid position, or half the salary for two positions if the town was successful in obtaining matching federal grant underwriting to cover the balance.

In the event grant funding is no’t forthcoming, and the council carries the existing line item, either Hook & Ladder or Sandy Hook, which are the town’s two busiest companies, would likely have a paid responder in-house by sometime this summer.

Mr Cragin said the presence of a paid responder could make as much as a 6–10-minute difference in response time for the first piece of apparatus compared to the current situation where drivers must first travel to the fire house when an alarm sounds.

Finance board member Joseph Kearney repeatedly questioned Mr Cragin over specifics of locating the paid personnel, as well as the current lack of specifics on a job description, or even how the paid firefighter would be supervised.

Mr Rosenthal explained that the Fire Commission or the fire marshal would provide supervision along with oversight on the hiring and staffing processes, much like its counterpart Police Commission serves the police department.

Just before the final vote, Mr Kearney said he remained uncomfortable endorsing a budget line when the position it was funding lacked as much as a job description.

Other lines of questioning to both Mr Rosenthal and members of the school administration and Board of Education revolved around allocations of salaries, benefits, energy use and conservation, as well as last-minute transfers and unanticipated revenues that typically come to the school district after the local budget process is all but finalized.

Information from school finance director Ronald Beinkowski on nearly $200,000 in transfers from salary and substitute lines already made to cover increased energy costs and the possibility of a modest decrease in insurance costs seemed to play a role in the subsequent motion to cut $250,000 from the school side of the proposed budget.

And after Mr Kortze ascertained no critical road projects were put off or pending in the current year, fellow board member Harrison Waterbury moved that $100,000 be cut from the Capital Road project line in the municipal side of the budget.

The only remaining discussion revolved around Mr Kortze’s motion to provide some further taxpayer relief by allocating $181,897 from a reserve fund for capital and nonrecurring expenditures to revenue. But after several others made strong cases to keep that money in reserve for future needs the motion failed.

Both the municipal and school-side cuts were then endorsed unanimously bringing the final Board of Finance proposal in at $96,531,206. After factoring in anticipated nonproperty tax revenue of about $15.7 million, the amount required to be raised through property taxation came out to $80,829,982.