Interpreting

The Budget Vote

To the Editor:

I read with some concern the account of the selectman’s approach to the budget rejection. Of the 3,574 voters who voted, 51.1 percent rejected the budget, but we have no idea why. Did they simply say No because they are feeling the financial pinch of rising heating bills, gasoline, mortgage interest rate hikes, and other essentials? Or are they opposed to the spending in the school budget? Or are they opposed to the spending in the selectman’s budget? Maybe it is a combination of all of these. Maybe it was rejected because it doesn’t represent enough spending in certain areas. The reasons are critical to what budget changes are appropriate. Perhaps The Bee should conduct a poll.

Unfortunately, splitting the budget vote into separate components (School/Selectman) has been taken off the table and we cannot tell exactly which parts of the budget are supported and which are not. We have only empirical data, mostly that expressed by vocal activists, but we have no real facts as to why the budget failed.

What we do know is that the revised budget that is likely to be proposed at the next referendum is more moving the furniture around than a real change and it represents what is, in my judgment, bad financial decisionmaking. Moving $342,000 from the school expense budget (computer purchase) to a bond is using longer term financing to buy computers that will be obsolete long before they are paid for. If we are buying these to provide students with the best equipment and software, three years is likely to be the functional life. Using bonds in this fashion is like refinancing your house for 30 years to free up enough cash to buy lawn fertilizer for this year. It just makes future purchases more difficult and adds to the cost of the assets purchased (interest) and will add to future tax increases when we have to replace these while still paying for them.

As to the $58,000 that might become available from the state and the $33,000 to be saved on health care costs, they should be eliminated from the budget — period. Now, lets talk about reductions.

Kudos to Mr Amaral who had the courage to propose that any reduction be split in essentially the proportion represented by each budget component, 66 percent school / 34 percent selectman’s budget. It seems to me that, absent facts about why the budget failed, that is a fair approach.

It was disappointing to see that the selectman agreed to Ms Llodra’s proposal, which amounts to moving the furniture around to make the budget look different without a serious change. It was the politically correct answer — don’t cut spending in a significant way, just spread it out over the next five or more years (computers) and then take credit for the $33,000 and the $58,000 that should be removed anyway. That way it appears that spending will be reduced by $440,000 while reducing spending not a dime. Which raises the question of when the budget developers learned of this “windfall” of $33,000 and $58,000 and why it wasn’t already removed. There are many other questions that could be asked, but neither time nor space permit.

Ken Schiess

10 Watch Hill Road, Sandy Hook                                     May 1, 2007