To The Editor:

Every time my tax bill arrives, I wonder who looked at the numbers behind it.

The State Senate votes on a budget that most of us will never read all the way through. Somebody has to, and they need to know what they’re looking at.

Amybeth Laroche does that for a living. She negotiates contracts in the private sector, which is mostly reading fine print, catching what doesn’t add up, and getting a better deal for the people she works for. She’s also served on Newtown’s Board of Finance, so she’s sat at the table where a town decides what it can pay for and what it can’t. Those are two places where you learn to ask where the money is really going, and to keep asking until you get an answer.

This state really needs that. Connecticut’s property tax rate is the third highest in the country, and this summer the Reason Foundation ranked us second in the nation for financial distress. Those didn’t happen overnight. They came out of budgets, year after year, and we feel them in our own bills.

I’d like a senator who’ll push back. Amybeth has the background for it, and she has been out in all four towns hearing what people are dealing with, so she knows what those numbers mean for real families. She has my vote on Tuesday, and I hope she has yours as well.

Thank you for your time,

Jen Conlon

Newtown