Opposing An Unfair Budget

To the Editor:

Next year’s proposed budget will unfairly punish education and was the result of a flawed process. This Tuesday I intend to vote No to the budget referendum.

The finance board and the Legislative Council used budget projections that hid real spending increases and a fallacious “silent majority” argument to support an inequitable cut that was placed unfairly on the education budget. I broke from supporting the budget at that point because those inequitable cuts redistributed spending from the schools to the town without sufficient vetting by the community.

We should use the most up-to-date accounting of each year’s spending for reporting purposes. But by comparing next year’s proposed budget to the budget approved last year we present a misleading comparison of year over year actual spending. Also, a massive savings from refinancing bonded debt is carried only on the selectman’s budget, even though 51 percent of bonded debt originated from schools. That hides real spending increases to the selectman’s budget. Bonded debt payment should be split and separately applied to the originating budgets, as has been done in the past, to accurately show the real burden from each side. In addition, $450,000 for bridge repair was transferred from the operating budget to the capital budget, giving the false appearance of a large cut in budgeted expenses for the coming year. Budget items moved over to capital need to be included in any “apples to apples” comparison to past years’ budgets. An honest comparison of the “real” burden of both the town and school sides was warranted, but not provided by the first selectman, finance director, Board of Finance or the Legislative Council. Omitting that honest analysis has skewed the process unfairly against the education budget resulting in an inequitable school cut that has effectively redistributed our spending from the schools to the town.

The Legislative Council justified this redistribution by citing a “silent majority,” which is a fallacious argument because those who choose to remain silent are undocumented and thus their status as a majority hold no power. Meanwhile, the facts support a large majority supporting our schools. Two townwide surveys and overwhelming support in a referendum for the new high school addition clearly show that the town rates schools as the most important part of our government’s services. The notion that there exists some hidden “silent majority” that wants large cuts to the education side appear false.

Most important in explaining my opposition to this year’s budget process is my disappointment over the way the vocal pleas of so many from the community were ignored. That seemed to me as an elitist way of governing and a breach of the promise for “respectful collaboration.” I can’t vote for a budget that was produced from such a flawed process and nor should you. Don’t be fooled by the proposition that suggests that a No vote will ultimately result in more cuts to the education budget. The facts and the public won’t support any more.

Bill Furrier

9 Erin Lane, Sandy Hook                                                April 21, 2010