Council Slates Budget Public Hearing For March 28

By John Voket

Residents and taxpayers will have an opportunity to assert their opinions or support of the proposed town budget when the Legislative Council convenes a public hearing Wednesday, March 28, at 7:30 pm, in the Newtown High School auditorium. The opportunity for public comment will also be offered April 4 before and after the council meets to complete the budget proposal.

By town charter, the annual budget referendum must be held annually the fourth Tuesday of April, so the council’s confirmation of the budget vote date is simply a formality.

Council Chairman Will Rodgers suggested that the session would be most productive for all if participants followed some common sense guidelines.

“There will be no dialogue, so I hope anyone coming with questions will make them rhetorically,” he said. “It would be an enormous help if attendees reserved any applause for individual speakers.”

Mr Rodgers believes that his fellow council members would be most appreciative if anyone coming to speak would consider presenting ideas that were not already articulated earlier in the proceedings.

“It’s just more helpful to us if each speaker brings something new to the table,” Mr Rodgers said. “It’s time-consuming if we just have a group of speakers all coming up to agree with points made by a prior speaker.”

Finance board Chairman John Kortze said he hoped the session would reinforce the importance of passing the budget on the first vote.

“Not passing this budget on the first go round could hurt our ability to get a bond rating upgrade, which in the long run will verifiably save taxpayers millions,” Mr Kortze said. He explained that representatives from Moody’s Investment Service, the town’s bond agency, have said they prefer to see town’s passing budgets on the first attempt.

“It reflects that the public overall supports funding for capital improvements and support for ongoing issues,” Mr Kortze said. He acknowledged that a recent flyer distributed through the school system may lead parents to think the finance board has made debilitating cuts to specific aspects of the school budget, but neither his board or the council has line item authority to do so by state statute.

Mr Kortze felt it was important to reiterate that his board’s action on the budget proposal has no impact on capital projects, sports, or other popular programs.

“It is the Board of Education that has the sole authority as to how they apply the cuts we propose,” Mr Kortze said. “But parents should know that this year our board has funded 99.1 percent of the increase requested and 100 percent of the district’s capital requests, at the amount, and on the schedule the school board has requested.”

He explained that suggested cuts to heating oil, diesel fuel, and insurance lines were based on trends each finance board member has been seeing in the regional and national economic landscape. Finance board members expect to see the fuel costs declining to accommodate the suggested cuts in that area, and expects the town and school district to realize even greater savings as they go out to bid for competitive insurance and benefit packages.

He added that other possible and suggested cuts to school transportation and certain staffing proposals are appropriate based on feedback the board was getting not only this year, but in years past.

“We have been closely watching trends in the overall economy for years, and determining how they are and will potentially affect the schools and town in the future,” Mr Kortze said. “Insurance, for example, is the second highest cost after salaries. So if we are being told to expect a certain level of savings through negotiating new coverage, shouldn’t we pass any savings we might realize on to the taxpayers?”

On the municipal side, First Selectman Herb Rosenthal defended the roughly eight percent increase passed on by the finance board, saying a $500,000 contribution to a capital nonrecurring fund was particularly important.

“Some years we take money out of that fund to help minimize tax impact to residents, and this year our surplus was unusually high, in part, because of a $300,000 one-time grant from the state, so we suggested it might be the right time to put some money back in,” the first selectman said. He added that such a reallocation should not be considered a direct hit to taxpayers, instead likening it to writing a check from one’s checking account to move money into savings.

Additional revenues and some past surpluses were generated in recent years when funds appropriated for debt service were more than the interest rate the town qualified for as a result of enhanced bond ratings and good luck in negotiating borrowing when interest rates were historically low, Mr Rosenthal said.

“There were a couple of cases recently where debt service was bonded and did not move forward generating surplus revenue, historically high tax collection rates, and unanticipated grants from the state, which closes out its budget weeks after the town,” he said.

Mr Rosenthal took issue with critics who suggested the town regularly generates substantially higher surpluses than the school board.

“That’s a case of no good deed going unpunished,” he said. “We try to get departments to be diligent and save as much money as possible. We don’t support spending it just because it’s left over in the budget.”

The first selectman pointed out that on several occasions in recent years, the school district had substantial surpluses in the final weeks of the fiscal year, but chose to spend down funds in one instance using $300,000 to pay off unbudgeted pension liabilities, and in other cases to use $400,000 to improve school playing fields, and to buy two minivans last year.