Finance Bd Hears Few Appeals At Budget Hearing

By John Voket

Members of the Board of Finance may be doubly challenged to sort out the best alternatives moving forward as a midweek public hearing brought out only a handful of individuals who, in the end, were almost equally split on how the spending proposal should move forward. The combined municipal and school budget proposals total $106,959,032, a 6.9 percent increase over the current spending program.

The school district’s proposal was presented at $66,931,044, while the municipal side stands at $40,027,988. The finance board was scheduled to deliberate action on the school’s proposal Thursday, February 28, after The Bee went to press.

Only seven individuals stepped to the microphone in the town’s middle school auditorium, and that number included two elected Legislative Council members, a PTA representative, an Independent Party of Newtown volunteer, and one of the party’s formerly endorsed candidates who made an unsuccessful run for the council last fall.

The latter, Ruby Johnson, was first at the microphone calling for finance officials to ratchet back any proposed allocations to the Fairfield Hills Authority. She repeated much of the same information she has been circulating at other public meetings in recent weeks, which is also part of a letter in this week’s edition of The Bee.

“We need to take hold of how we’re spending money…have people accountable,” Ms Johnson said. “Do not include any more money for the people to spend at Fairfield Hills until they’ve exhausted the money we gave them.”

Ms Johnson also called for better oversight of spending by the authority.

Resident Bob Merola also appeared, reiterating points he had made at previous meetings following a call he made to the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, the organization currently holding the academic accreditation on warning status for the local high school.

“NEASC doesn’t mention athletics,” Mr Merola said, adding that the district could achieve goals set forth by the regional agency to alleviate its warning status without spending more than $7 million to improve athletic facilities, including the gymnasium, the football stadium, and tracks.

“This is $7 million we could be using somewhere else,” he said.

Mr Merola reiterated his general opposition to the level of spending proposed to renovate and expand the high school, based on his assessment of the economy and declining student population projections. He told the finance board that during a recent trip to the town building department, he learned that housing starts in Newtown between 2000 and 2007 have dwindled from 126 to 33, and there have been no new houses started in 2008.

He also pointed out that in his review of both mid and high district population projections looking back just five years, the accuracy of numbers provided by the district’s primary population consultant, Dr Bruce Bothwell, have regularly been overstated.

Resident Patrick O’Connor came to the microphone suggesting the school district explore expanded school day scheduling as a creative option for managing crowded conditions, versus building to accommodate the current bubble of students that has swelled beyond the building’s capacity.

He also took aim at hiring on the municipal side, reminding the finance board that every new public employee comes with not only an immediate salary but taxpayer expenses like worker’s compensation and retirement incentives, health care and training, which often increases in cost over time.

“We need to consider that when [departments] are asking to hire,” Mr O’Conor said. “We shouldn’t have a body at every desk.”

Stating his support for the recently formed Independent Party of Newtown, Benjamin Roberts spoke at length, criticizing in part the level of information being made available to the public regarding the intricacies of the local budget process. He suggested developing a system by which department heads post to an online “open source model,” illustrating each department’s budget building processes as they are happening.

“If you had the information out there, somebody would run those numbers. Enlist the powers of the community to make this task, which is clearly much bigger that what you folks can do with superhuman effort…to move out of this vicious circle,” he said.

Mr Roberts also reiterated suggestions he expressed previously to the finance board to put less emphasis on a self-imposed ten percent debt cap on financing capital projects, and downplaying the inherent value of the town’s AA2 bond rating issued by Moody’s Investor’s Service.

Suggesting taxpayers would gladly take the tax increase hit related to a drop in the bond rating to gain the benefits of particularly new and improved school facilities, Mr Roberts asked the finance board to consider more spending for school projects in the future.

“Don’t let the debt cap and bond ratings drive your decisions,” Mr Roberts said.

At the same time, he advocated against the new municipal office project in process at Fairfield Hills.

At that juncture, finance Chairman John Kortze broke from the agenda to respond, defending the scope of work both town and school officials perform annually to craft their respective budget proposals.

“All of that process is public, all of those meetings are public, anybody is entitled to attend, and I think we have done an awfully good job as of late — although it is not the Board of Finance’s responsibility — of getting a lot of that information on the web,” Mr Kortze said. “I think the town should be commended for that.”

Council member Po Murray thanked finance officials for breaking out certain items in the budget worksheet noticed published prior to the meeting, and then called for even more detail in identifying each improvement bond issue in the document. She also echoed Mr Robert’s comments about the lack of budget-related information circulating to the public.

“There’s little information going to residents about the budget process,” she said, adding that all town departments should collaborate in a unified way to present collective support and justification for the increases requested in current and future budget proposals.

“Make a case for the budget we hope to adopt,” Ms Murray told finance officials.

Mary Ann Jacob spoke representing the Sandy Hook Elementary PTA, first complimenting the district’s new superintendent, Dr Janet Robinson, for her work finalizing the school’s side of the budget proposal as she was transitioning into her post in January.

Ms Jacob called on the finance board to leave seemingly disproportionate increases in the school’s technology budget intact, so two remaining elementary schools, Head O’ Meadow and Middle Gate, can be fully integrated with the district’s technology infrastructure.

“These two schools are grossly behind what we would consider acceptable [technology] in our own homes and our businesses,” she said.

Council member John Aurelia was the final speaker on the agenda, but instead of commenting on the budget, he took fellow council member Po Murray to task over her failure to qualify her comments as being her own.

“Po Murray speaks as Po Murray; the Legislative Council is not making a statement one way or the other. She does not speak representing us,” Mr Aurleia said, adding that he always qualifies his public comments in context if he is speaking on behalf of any special interest or political organization.