Budget Deserves Defeat

To the Editor,

Newtown’s proposed fiscal budget for 2000-2001 is terrible and deserving of a resounding defeat at the upcoming referendum on Tuesday, April 25. All throughout the debate and public presentations of the budget, I, like many others, have adopted a wait and see attitude. We have kept our thoughts and opinions to ourselves hoping that sensible heads would prevail. We probably could have lived with a 2.0 or less mill rate increase. There was a glimmer of hope that this might come to pass when the council initially cut the budget requests. Alas, yielding to special interest pressure, all monies cut originally were restored. Now we are looking at a plan where all special interests get what they want, town spending increases by 10.94 percent, and the tax rate goes up by 2.9 mills. Some council members opposed to this budget have expressed concern that this is just the start of future double digit budget increases and progressively greater tax increases.

Enough is enough! The town is in hock up to its elbows, eyebrows, or wherever; yet we continue to spend and borrow like there is no tomorrow. Mr Kortze and Mr Spragg, to their credit, come up with very creative financing arrangements to minimize the impact of borrowings on the mill rate. This makes the budget more palatable to the voter. In following years, as the smoke and mirrors evaporate, they will be hard pressed to mitigate the effects of an ever burgeoning debt load.

I don’t care how Newtown ranks with other Connecticut towns in spending on education. Nor do I care that property values in town will suffer if this budget goes down in flames. These arguments, advanced by some in support of the package and its accompanying 14 percent increase in the Board of Education’s allocation, are specious at best and not justification for approving this budget.

Odds are, though, that the budget will be approved. When it comes to voter acceptance of spending and taxation, most will tend to support a package so long as their favorite pork is provided for. Unfortunately they will not consider the impact of the plan as a whole.

Town leaders blame the budget increase on Newtown’s phenomenal growth, yet little seems to be going on to stem the tide of residential development or to encourage reasonable commercial development. Attracting commercial enterprises would enable a shift of some of the tax burden from individuals to business, yet year after year, budget increases continue to be blamed on a lack of a commercial tax base. If economic development is not being encouraged, then residential development must be curtailed, perhaps through more restrictive zoning, onerous building regulations, increased building fees, or even a town real estate conveyance fee to help defray costs to Newtown associated with new development.

Perhaps defeat of this budget and similar budgets going forward is a good place to start in slowing down Newtown’s growth. Please vote on Tuesday, April 25.

Dave Ruscoe

3 Steck Drive, Newtown                       April 19, 2000