Town Moving Financial Services

 To Newtown Savings Bank

By John Voket

First Selectman Joe Borst said Thursday morning that the municipality will transfer all its banking to Newtown Savings Bank effective October 1.

“We’re glad to be able to see all the accounts going to our hometown bank,” Mr Borst said. He added that the move will provide easier access to decisionmakers and “eyeball-to-eyeball contact” with banking officials on a broad range of financial matters.

“Certainly John Trentacosta and John Martocci were receptive to the move,” Mr Borst said referring to the president and chairman of the bank.

The first selectman said he negotiated the deal along with an agreement that the bank would underwrite a $3.5 million loan that Peter D’Amico is taking out to cover the cost of demolishing Greenwich Hall and completing permanent parking at Fairfield Hills.

Mr Borst said that Mr D’Amico’s loan, which is currently being financed at 6.95 percent, would be reduced to six percent once it is transferred from the current institution to Newtown Savings Bank.

Finance Director Robert Tait said the NSB fee proposal was “favorable compared to Bank of America,” the bank that currently handles town accounts. The refinancing of Mr D’Amico’s loan effective October 1 will end up saving the town $183,000 in interest over the ten-year term of the loan, although officials suggested the town will seek to aggressively pay down that loan, possibly in as little as three years.

Mr Tait said former finance director Ben Spragg had already begun the preliminary job of researching a new bank, but left it up to the current administration as his retirement date approached.

According to Mr Tait, Newtown Savings Bank currently services all of the Town of Monroe’s accounts, and Monroe officials provided a favorable recommendation upon hearing that Newtown was entertaining a switch to the community bank.

Mr Trentacosta told The Bee that as Newtown’s hometown bank for more than 150 years he was “delighted to have this opportunity.”

“We’re looking forward to doing business with the Town of Newtown,” the bank president said in an e-mail statement. “For the past few years, Newtown Savings Bank has provided a wide array of banking services to several other local municipalities and has a proven track record in this arena.” 

Newtown Savings Bank is a mutual community bank headquartered in Newtown, with $900 million in assets.