Watching And Understanding

The Budget Process

To the Editor:

Your January 15, 2010, editorial “The New Openness Starts With Us” articulates what I and likely many others are looking forward to — more information, openly available, so that we can better understand if our voices have been understood by those who govern the town.

Town expenditures, including the five-year Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) and expected day-to-day operations detailed in the budget are a part of this. Currently, we are well into the town CIP process. While The Bee has reported on some information from the Board of Education as they prepared their CIP, much less information from the Selectmen’s CIP has appeared thus far. However, as mentioned in the editorial, information about the Selectmen’s CIP can be found online, in their January 4, 2010, minutes (http://www.newtown-ct.gov/Public_Documents/NewtownCT_SelectMin/) and in the Board of Finance minutes from January 11, 2010 (http://www.newtown-ct.gov/Public_Documents/NewtownCT_FinanceMin/), where they extensively reviewed the proposed Selectmen’s CIP. The minutes from the Board of Finance captures the conversations well. Attachments E and F, included with the minutes, describe the selectmen’s CIP from a functional and a year to year perspective, respectively. Highlights from the selectmen’s CIP include revisiting the original $69 million price tag and reducing it to less than half, and also reprioritizing among requested projects.

On Monday, the Board of Finance had a special meeting that included some discussion about getting information — in context — regarding the school HVAC (something that the Board of Ed facilities subcommittee is currently undertaking) and a presentation of the Board of Education CIP. Total capital projects for both the Board of Selectmen and the Board of Education add up to roughly $69 million over five years, but there is only room for about $38 million in the combined CIP for that time frame, based on existing debt service guidelines. Development and discussion of a proposed combined CIP is slated for the February 8 meeting. To the citizens of Newtown, take a look. As with the earlier meetings, all relevant documents should be appended to the meeting’s minutes. Ultimately, the Legislative Council will review and act on the recommendations from the Board of Finance. As the editorial said, a “key component that will make or break this new spirit of openness is the willingness of citizens to participate.”

Deborra Zukowski

4 Cornfield Ridge Road, Newtown                          January 26, 2010