Round Two For The Budget

Voter rejection of Newtown’s proposed $102 million budget April 24 was not only about the money. To be sure, most of the pre- and post-vote skirmishing ranged along the many and various line items in the spending plan, but the real fire was sparked on the flint of frustration.

People pay a lot in taxes, and the property tax is notorious for hitting hardest those with the least ability to pay. It is a tax that removes some people from their homes and their community, and this stark fact is never far from the minds of citizens reviewing the spending habits of their elected leaders. So the obligatory spending on “fixed costs” in the school and town budgets looks a lot like free spending to those on fixed incomes. All the supporting rationales, explanations, and caveats, no matter how precise and factual, still come off like too much talking and not enough listening. It is frustrating. And for the voter who feels ignored, the way to interrupt the conversation and to get everyone’s attention is to vote No.

It is clear from some of the letters we have received and some of the comments we have heard around town that the first vote on the budget may not have fully discharged the built-up frustration over local spending and taxes. And static over a couple of issues may be priming the electorate to deliver another shock to budgetmakers in a second vote scheduled for May 8.

First is the largely false notion that the proposed budget authorizes spending $10.5 million on the renovation of Bridgeport Hall at Fairfield Hills for use as town and school offices. The Board of Selectmen and the Fairfield Hills Authority are moving ahead with the design and construction phases of that project based on previous authorizations. The only new appropriation in the proposed budget for the Bridgeport Hall offices would cover what have been described as “finishing aspects” of the project. Killing the budget won’t kill the project. Still, when a tax rate increase exceeds the increase in the cost of living, a $10.5 million town hall looks like an extravagance, whether the money has been previously appropriated or not.

Second is a decision by the Legislative Council to minimize the impact of a budget cut on actual spending for operational equipment costs (computer conversions) by borrowing money and deferring part of the costs to future years. To an electorate intent on sending a message of spending restraint, the financial finagling to allow the same amount of money to be spent on computers by spreading the payments into future budgets says one thing: message not received.

We favored the original budget proposal that was voted down on April 24. We still believe it reflected a balance of fiscal restraint and public responsibility. Ours was a minority view. While the new budget plan, $750,000 leaner, still satisfies that belief and achieves that balance, we fear that it has done nothing to address the frustration of those who held a contrary — and majority — view. If this budget proposal shares the fate of the first, we have some advice for Newtown’s budgetmakers: fewer rationales, explanations, and caveats; more listening.