Budget Supporters Hope To Rally Men For May 8 Vote

By John Voket

Budget supporters say it is going to take at least a few good men to assure the local spending package passes next Tuesday without further cuts. And if those cuts come as a result of a second budget failure, services affecting residents and schools may be affected.

The second budget referendum goes to voters and taxpayers Tuesday, May 8, and polls will be open at the Newtown Middle School from 6 am to 8 pm. The first spending proposal failed by 75 votes April 24, which precipitated the Legislative Council to cut an additional $750,000 or two-tenths of a mill during a special meeting April 25.

A mill represents one dollar for every $1,000 in taxable property.

Mary Ann Jacob, who represents the Sandy Hook Elementary PTA and a consortium of townwide PTAs, performed analyses of budget votes in years past. She told The Newtown Bee in a preliminary review of the first referendum voting trends from April 2007 that results are similar to last year — about half the men of school-age children whose spouses voted did not vote.

“Does that make sense?” she asked rhetorically. “Every vote counts.”

In an e-mail message, Ms Jacob reminded those who will be busy with work commitments Tuesday that absentee ballots can be processed in the town clerk’s office Saturday until noon. Qualified voters who know they will not be able to access the polls are among those who can qualify to vote by absentee ballot.

The $750,000 cut from the first proposal was achieved when council representatives voted 8-4 to support a reduction with stipulations proposed by Patricia Llodra. Ms Llodra detailed a school/town split designating $542,000 in cuts from the school side, and $150,000 from the town side, factoring in the $58,000 in additional anticipated state revenue reported by First Selectman Herb Rosenthal.

Her breakdown incorporated a $342,000 transfer of technology spending to a bond issue, with another $200,000 in unspecified reductions to be left to the discretion of the school board. On the town side, she suggested $143,000 in unspecified cuts with $7,000 making up the difference between debt service on the computer bonding, and an additional $33,000 from health insurance savings.

While school district Business Manager Ron Bienkowski said through a representative this week that his office would not begin formulating cuts until a final budget was passed by voters, the town finance authority, which includes First Selectman Herb Rosenthal and Finance Director Benjamin Spragg, trimmed the revised town-side proposal without affecting direct-to-taxpayer programs.

According to information furnished by the finance department, cuts will be applied to the Legislative Council’s legal budget, town police and emergency dispatcher salary lines, Parks and Recreation Department trail maintenance, Highway Department road overlays, and a one percent reduction in town-side health insurance costs.

The salary cuts are being affected in ways that do not reduce hours or positions, and the council’s legal budget will be cut back to a level from previous years. Mr Rosenthal said that line was increased this year because of anticipated extra costs associated with the charter revision process.

The road and trail line items, while being fractionally reduced, are not being eliminated altogether.

“We didn’t want to have to cut positions or take money from park programs,” Mr Rosenthal said. But he alluded that a further mandate from voters to cut further might necessitate moving into those line items in the future.

Mr Rosenthal also asserted that the idea to finance the operating cost of a partial school system computer platform conversion would be done in a short-term borrowing initiative as opposed to attaching the $342,000 expenditure to a larger 20-year note that will be offered in December.

“If the budget passes, we will recommend short-term financing, either notes or leases for the life of the computers for the time the Board of Ed generally keeps them — four or five years,” Mr Rosenthal said in a statement. “I will not support long-term bonding for them when the time comes for the actual appropriation that will have to go back to the voters.”

Mr Rosenthal said the Board of Finance will have a voice in the appropriation process.

“The intention was to give the taxpayers a break in the mill rate for their annual taxes and still purchase the needed computers for the children,” he said.

At a regular meeting following the failed first referendum, Board of Finance chair John Kortze described the computer proposal as the “most amenable way to deal with a tough situation.”

He was critical of council members, however, saying an amendment to Ms Llodra’s budget proposal assumed the finance board would rubber stamp the computer financing if the second round proposal passes next Tuesday.

“If the [budget] passes, it will send back a predetermined outcome,” Mr Kortze said of the computer proposal. Mr Kortze appeared somewhat frustrated over the matter, suggesting that if the finance board advises against the move, the council will likely exercise its authority to authorize the purchase.

Council Chairman Will Rodgers told The Bee Thursday that the first item on the cutting block if the second budget vote fails will be the computer proposal. Mr Rodgers then voiced his own frustration over the tight margin of defeat.

“A narrow defeat is the toughest to handle,” he said, adding that while it is not counted as such in the polling place, failure to show up at all is “tantamount to a No vote.” He also suggested that since the town is apparently so tightly divided on the current budget package, the divide likely extends into the households of local students.

Since voter records are public, Mr Rodgers said he believes at least some cases, “the only thing parents can do if they do not support the budget” is not show up to vote at all.

The second town budget referendum is Tuesday, May 8. Polls will be open at the middle school from 6 am to 8 pm. Absentee ballots will be available Saturday, May 5, in the town clerk’s office from 9 am to noon.