Someone, Not ‘Some’

To the Editor:

It takes serious provocation to get me to write a letter to The Newtown Bee (best paper in the country). That provocation, however, came when I was referred to in last week’s Letter Hive as “some.”

Ronald J. Bienkowski, director of business for the Newtown school system, wrote a letter complaining that it is unfair to point out that six years ago (October 1, 2006) there were 5,668 students in the Newtown schools (by its own report) and the budget was $61,422,154, whereas in the current year there are only 5,306 students in Newtown schools (6.4 percent fewer) and the budget is $67,871,427 (10.7 percent higher). The numbers are even worse if you compare October 1, 2005 when the number of students was 5,648 (results in a 6.1 percent decrease), but the budget was only $57,338,770 (results in an 18.5 percent increase).

I was the only member of the public at the Legislative Council hearing to speak to this point, although I know some members of the council had that information already.

To quote Mr Bienkowski, “The latest challenge by some has been to do multiple-year comparisons to enlarge the impact of the school budget.”

Mr Bienkowski, my name is Robert H. Hall, not “some.” And I do not need to “enlarge the impact” of the budget; the school administration has already done that for me. In my opinion, the impact of a year-to-year increase of $1,784,367 in the school budget (which takes into account the alleged “savings” of $400,000 by terminating the owner-operator system) is not just “enlarged,” it is bloated. What disturbs me the most is that other town officials seem to have drunk your Kool-Aid. And what is also sad is that we have not had a charter revision to allow us to vote on the Board of Education and Board of Selectmen budgets separately.

Mr Bienkowski apparently believes that those persons who are not intimately involved in development of the Board of Education budget day-to-day and year-to-year should limit themselves to comparing the current budget with the proposed budget and “identify where potential changes can and should be made.” In other words, get lost in the details, with a view so close to the minutia that you no longer see the big picture.

Sooner or later that approach produces exactly what we have here, a budget which creeps up inexorably because each year the increase is only a million dollars. Where is the justification for each and every program? Just because a program was in last year’s budget does not mean it should continue.

There is a remedy for this inexorable increase; vote No on the budget next Tuesday. I urge every Newtown voter to go to the polls next Tuesday and do exactly that.

Sincerely

Robert H. Hall

5 Nettleton, Avenue, Newtown                                      April 16, 2012