In addition to approving some additional minor proposed revisions to Newtown’s constitutional document, the Charter Revision Commission (CRC) at its next meeting in November is expected to decide on what direction to take in discussion of the future of the local Board of Finance. The panel is currently weighing whether to suggest changes to Charter language regarding the finance board, or to possibly suggest eliminating that board altogether.

At its October 20 meeting, commission member Tony Filiato asked for a straw poll on the issue, “so we’re not spinning our wheels.”

“If we have a clear majority one way or another it gives us something to move on,” said Filiato.

The poll of CRC members is expected to be done at its next meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, November 10.

Earlier in the meeting, member James Gaston noted there are four ways the commission can move on how to revise the board.

1. Do nothing.

“The board seemed to work pretty well until recently,” said Gaston, referring to recent incidents where the BOF made a recommendation and the Legislative Council ignored the recommendation and started work on an issue from scratch. “Whether that was an aberrant situation or not, we can encourage the Legislative Council and the Board of Finance to work more cohesively.”

2. Abolish the Board of Finance.

If this course is followed the Legislative Council would go back to dealing with all financial matters.

3. Give the Board of Finance “some teeth.”

This course would give the board increased ability to make binding decisions instead of being a mostly advisory board. The CRC is seeking input from Town Attorney David Grogins on a number of issues surrounding this, including whether a town can have more than one fiscal authority, and whether the board is a fiscal authority if the council requires a supermajority to override its budget recommendations. Currently, the LC requires a supermajority if it wants to add anything to a budget recommendation from the BOF.

“The supermajority requirement makes the Board of Finance a quasi-legislative board,” said Commission Chairman Andy Buzzi.

4. Give it the financial policy decisions but not have it involved in the budgetary process.

“They would be involved in things like the non-lapsing account, and the debt policy,” said Gaston. “It would remove some duplication [of responsibilities between the two town bodies].”

Town Attorney Input

Grogins was asked to review the legality of potential revisions 3 and 4 for the CRC’s next meeting. The thought was if Grogins found legal problems with either of those potential revisions, it would reduce the possible avenues for how the BOF could be changed.

Grogins expressed concerns that following a course that would increase the BOF’s authority would be unlikely to be approved by the LC, which would be accordingly reducing its own authority.

“It’s a practical matter of what they’re willing to give up,” said Grogins.

Gaston said that didn’t trouble him.

“Our job is to come up with the best idea and then the Legislative Council does what it does as a political matter,” Gaston said.

Buzzi said that many people have come to the CRC with the feeling that the BOF “needs a tune-up of some sort.” He noted that even some BOF members feel they should be doing “half of what they do.”

“They don’t want to be involved in budget transfers and other minor issues,” said Buzzi.

Other items the CRC looked at included a charge from the LC to create a civilian review board for the Newtown Police Department.

According to Grogins, Police Chief James Viadero said that the Police Commission currently acts as a civilian review board. Grogins said that creating a separate board would be “duplication of effort.”

Buzzi said that the CRC may just change the Charter’s current language on the Police Commission to note that it is a civilian review board.

No action was taken.

‘Select’-ing An Option

The CRC is also continuing to review changing the language of the entire Charter to being gender neutral. Some titles that would consider being changed would be changing “chairman” to “chair” or “chairperson,” changing “policeman/woman” to “police officer,” and changing “selectmen” to “selectperson” or “select.”

CRC member Dennis Brestovansky disagreed with the change to “selectman,” saying that the title was a part of town history and that he did not think any person, man or woman, would not run due to the nomenclature of the office.

Gaston said he “struggled with the issue,” noting that people from outside of town “struggled” with what to call then-First Selectman Patricia Llodra, whether to “call her ‘first selectman’ or ‘first selectwoman,’ even though she told them that her title was ‘first selectman.’”

“I think there’s some historical aspect to the terms, but it may be time to move on,” said Gaston.

Filiato said he was concerned about how the town’s charter relates to state statutes, which are mostly not gender neutral.

“If we use all this terminology, we could inadvertently fall out of synch with state statutes,” said Filiato, noting it could cause legal hassles for the town regarding the applicability of the town charter.

CRC member Prerna Rao said she “wasn’t sure” of the risk of statutes not being applicable.

Gaston also said that the state was moving its own language toward gender neutrality in new legislation.

The CRC charged commission member Elias Peterson with coming up with a line item list of changes in the charter for gender neutral language, rather than just making changes directly to the document that could be difficult to locate for later review.

No further action was taken.

The CRC did vote to remove Section 2-210, concerning a Board of Building Appeals, from the Charter. The town currently has no one appointed to such a board and has not in recent memory.

“I bet someone will complain,” said Filiato after the commission unanimously approved the removal.

“We should immediately appoint that person to building appeals,” joked commission member Peterson.

The CRC unanimously approved a revision that formally added the Fairfield Hills Authority to the charter. The FFA was previously only established by town ordinance, approved in 2005.

Reporter Jim Taylor can be reached at jim@thebee.com.