A Budgetary Strike

At Newtown’s Schools

To the Editor:

Last year’s local election results inspired so much hope for Newtown as the Republican Party took the helm promising a new period of respectful collaboration with our community.

Surprise — We were blindsided this budget season, when the new Republican administration, with the support from the remaining Democrats, cut $2.5 million from the school budget. Perhaps more shocking than the draconian cuts to the school budget is that the selectman’s budget enjoyed a healthy $1.3 million increase in discretionary spending! This year’s budget was all about unequal sacrifice with the painful hardship of budget cuts squarely placed on the shoulders of the education budget.

Real spending on the town side of the budget will increase by $1.3 million — not $58,000 as publicly reported by the first selectman and prominent members of her party. Citing a need to trim the budget, the Board of Finance and the Legislative Council applied a $2.5 million cut to the education budget and only one tenth of that amount to the Board of Selectmen’s budget. The Board of Ed and their supporters expressed passionate pleas that cuts this size would have sweeping changes to their programs. As the minority member of the Board of Selectman, I testified in front of the Legislative Council that the selectmen’s budget contained ample capacity and should share in the burden of the budget cuts. Quite simply — Why not promote shared sacrifice by moving a portion of the proposed spending increases on the selectman’s budget over to the education budget?

For me the budget process became a fundamental constitutional lesson; showing that a government should derive its powers from the just consent of the governed. But the majority deprived the community of its rightful power to determine its future along party lines. This is a basic question of allocation of resources and prioritizing of tax dollars, and that must be settled by the community as a whole. Instead, a small group of political insiders turned a deaf ear to the hundreds of people who attended the public meetings expressing their disappointment and rammed their vision of Newtown’s future down our throats. By making disproportionate cuts to the budget, these elected officials made sweeping reprioritizations of spending without obtaining public consensus. What do the people of Newtown need to do to get the representative government they deserve? When will our government begin to represent all of the community, not just a portion of it?

This budget process was a direct shot at two of Newtown’s greatest assets — our schools and our property values. It was a travesty and will reverse the progress that was being made uniting our divided community.

Bill Furrier

IPN, Selectman

9 Erin Lane, Sandy Hook                                              March 14, 2010