Finance Board Reacts To Public Statements On The Budget

By Eliza Hallabeck

After attending the Legislative Council’s meeting on April 7, Board of Finance Chairman John Kortze was concerned. He said he heard a number of statements that were not accurate, or, in some cases, factually wrong.

Mr Kortze asked Town Finance Director Bob Tait at the Board of Finance’s meeting on Monday, April 12, to organize facts on per pupil spending and commercial development to dispel some of those false assumptions.

“It seems people are looking for commercial development to be an answer to offset tax increases and to give us more revenue,” said Mr Kortze, “and it is a very logical assumption. The point, I think, that needs to be made is an illustration of what one mill is, which is almost $4 million dollars now, and how many of the top commercial tax payers in this town we would have to ‘reproduce’ in this town to derive one mill’s worth of tax relief.”

While to some people commercial development may be a welcomed idea, Mr Kortze said, to others it may change their concept of what Newtown is. Withstanding his own opinion or anyone else’s opinion, he said, the information would help people understand how much commercial development would be needed to provide one mill’s worth of tax relief.

“I would also like to know, for this board and for the public, how many square feet of unused, unoccupied, commercial space there is in town that needs to be filled, probably first,” said Mr Kortze. “Again, not withstanding any opinions on the matter, I think that data will help the public to a certain degree.”

The issue of per pupil spending, Mr Kortze said, was also brought up at the Legislative Council’s meeting by member Jan Andras, who compared Greenwich’s per pupil spending to Newtown’s per pupil spending with adding in commercial tax relief to see how much money each house spends to per year on per pupil spending.

“The point is,” Mr Kortze continued, “it doesn’t obviate the issue to the person who thinks we should spend more, and I understand that. It does shed some light as to where those numbers come from.”

Finance board member Martin Gersten, later in the meeting, said there seems be a disconnect at the education level of town that assumes spending more money will produce a better school system.

“School systems are not bricks and mortar,” he said, “but a recognition that the quality of education is reflected in the success of the students. And that is a function of the teachers.”

Having quality teachers, he said, can be achieved the same way the private enterprise achieves quality workers; if a worker is good they make more money.

Mr Tait also spoke during the meeting on three points raised at the Legislative Council’s meeting.

“It was stated that it basically took a few minutes to find an $800,000 savings,” said Mr Tait. “Basically, to me, the statement was made to trivialize the process, and to make it seem like the town always has money in its back pocket. Obviously that is not true.”

The savings, Mr Tait said, were related to funding and took a lot of work between consultants and hours to complete a budget analysis.

“We had payroll savings due to vacant positions,” said Mr Tait. “Specifically, we had a position in [information technology]. That department head wasn’t very happy. They were stressed as a department; however, we asked them to wait until July 1. We had favorable costs and bids for materials and services.”

Continuing the list of savings, he said consulting services were delayed also.

“I just wanted to make that clear that it wasn’t just money that we always knew we had,” said Mr Tait.

 

Comparing Budgets

Speaking to another comment from the Legislative Council meeting, Mr Tait addressed comparing the adopted 2010-2011 budget to the adopted 2009-2010 budget in contrast to comparing it with the amended budget.

“It was stated that night that it was disingenuous to compare the adopted to the adopted,” Mr Tait said. People, he said, also brought up a spreadsheet he had created for a citizen, in response to having a 1.5 percent budget increase while having a three percent tax increase.

On the first sheet of the spreadsheet, Mr Tait said he answered the question comparing the amended 2009-2010 budget to the 2010-2011 adopted budget, but the second page of the spreadsheet also showed how to compared the two adopted budgets.

“This wasn’t created by me justifying the adopted to amended budget, it was the answer to a question,” said Mr Tait.

To another point, Mr Tait said it was stated multiple times at the Legislative Council meeting by a citizen that there were multiple budget increases on the town budget.

Most departments are flat or negative, Mr Tait said, and the places in the budget with increases include workers compensation insurance and employee benefits.

Mr Kortze said more information was provided to the public this year than any other year, from all boards in town. Yet, with that information being provided, he said, residents still got information wrong. One example he used during the meeting was residents requesting the $2.5 million cut from the education budget’s proposed increase to be restored. Mr Kortze said $1.4 million of the $2.5 was justified in commodity savings, e.g. savings in insurance costs or fuel oil.

“It is just factually wrong,” said Mr Kortze, “and there has got to be a better way for us, and for the town, to dispel all those myths.”

Mr Kortze also said he noticed citizens were concerned with the Board of Finance and Legislative Council’s role passing the two sides of the budget.

“We serve a particular function,” Mr Kortze said. “It may rub people the wrong way, but bond ratings are our job. Budgets are our job.”

All elected members of town boards are volunteers, he said, and all of the boards are filling their roles in the representative form of government.