Second Budget Vote

Set For May 15

By Steve Bigham

Newtown residents will get a second crack at the town’s proposed budget for 2000-01 at a town meeting Monday night, May 15, at 8 pm in the Newtown High School auditorium. Town officials are confident it will pass this time around, believing a 1.6 mill increase in the tax rate will be acceptable to voters.

Last week, the Legislative Council cut $2.1 million out of the proposal after taxpayers turned down the original $68.9 million budget April 25, which represented an tax increase of 2.9 mills.

The $2.1 million consisted of $500,000 from the Board of Education budget, $250,000 in funding for Fairfield Hills, and $200,000 from the Parks & Recreation budget. In addition, the council agreed to put off spending $1.1 million worth of debt service for the school board’s proposed 5/6 school, which town officials now agree will not be ready to go forward until next year. The school’s timeline for opening is still September 2002. All that is being put off is the school board’s request for funding.

The new bottom line is $66.9 million – $39.4 million for the Board of Education and $27.5 million for the town.

“It’s a $2.1 million reduction to this year’s budget, of which $1.1 million is being postponed until next year, so it’s really only $1 million in true cuts,” noted John Kortze, chairman of the council’s finance committee and the principal author of budget #2.

It appears likely that the cut to the Parks & Recreation budget will not affect plans to build two ball fields at the Amaral Property along Elm Drive. First Selectman Herb Rosenthal last week announced he would use town workers and town fill to alleviate the high cost for the project.

Budget #2 will not go to referendum no matter what the result of Monday’s town meeting. Residents would have had to submit a petition signed by 643 voters in order to send the proposed budget to a referendum. Town Clerk Cindy Simon informed The Bee that no petition had been submitted.

This week, Legislative Council Chairman Pierre Rochman, an outspoken opponent to budget #1, said he fully supported budget #2, which represents a five percent increase over the existing budget.

“I don’t think we could do any better without really hurting people. I can’t imagine anybody having any serious objections,” he said.

First Selectman Herb Rosenthal agreed. “I think the council did a very responsible job of responding to the wishes of the voters who defeated the budget at the referendum. They went after areas that they felt they could make adjustments. Clearly money had to be cut. The voters voted it down.”

 “I think [the budget is] about as fair as you can get, considering that we need an awful lot,” she said. “I mean the school population is up, the town population is up. Sometimes people forget that the entire population is up. I don’t think we can meet them very responsibly if we lower the budget much more.”

The school budget took a $500,000 hit – a hit Superintendent of Schools John Reed is still trying to absorb. He voiced his disappointment this week about the half million cut on top of the million dollars cut by the school board early on. He expected it to have a “detrimental effect” on education in Newtown. Nevertheless, he too has voiced support for the new proposal.

“My own opinion about this is that I don’t see any scenario under which the council will support any further funds for the school board. The referendum was lost and the cut was not unanticipated. I don’t know what other alternative there would be,” Dr Reed said. “I don’t see anything to be gained by not supporting the budget.”

The Board of Education plans to wait until June or later to determine where the school cuts will come from. By that time, Dr Reed said, the school system will have a better handle on costs and upcoming school enrollments.

Mrs Pilchard said she hopes there will be a reasonable tax relief plan for the elderly because the cost to own property is going up dramatically, especially if you are on a fixed income.

“There ought to be some relief. After all, it’s the retired citizen who does a lot of the volunteer work and does not add to the cost of running the town, so we want to keep them here,” she said.