Thinking Outside The Box––

Board Of Finance Chairman Takes The Long View

By Dottie Evans

Now that the proposed 2003–2004 budget is in the hands of the voters –– and must bear continued and painful reductions by the Legislative Council every time it fails at the polls –– Board of Finance members find they have time to think about the future.

They have done their job and passed along the 2003–2004 budget proposal. Now, due to the governmental process and sequence by which decisions are made, this year’s Great Budget Debate is happening elsewhere.

As a result, the Board of Finance is already making plans for what might be done to offset today’s set of negative conditions that caused at least two budget proposals to be voted down.

The board has not failed to notice what is going on in Newtown and in surrounding towns, a phenomenon that some call “Regional Tax Revolt,” and they are trying to brainstorm ways to respond to taxpayers’ concerns.

“Let’s not allow this thing to keep on spiraling down into a deep hole,” said Board of Education Chairman Elaine McClure as she spoke during the Monday night meeting.

“It is a concern,” First Selectman Herb Rosenthal agreed, adding, “We want to avoid polarizing of communities.”

Finance Board Chairman John Kortze wanted to respond to “what we keep on hearing,” through a process he called “conceptualizing” or considering possible courses of action.

“Allow me to share some thoughts I’ve had, float some ideas out there for you to consider,” Mr Kortze said.

He added that over the next few months, he hoped the board could spend a substantial amount of time on each of four issues that he felt might offer some measure of relief for the taxpayers.

“It’s a little bit of everything and not a lot of one thing,” he said about ideas for slowing down the town’s burgeoning rate of growth and stopping the escalating tax levels.

The four areas are the budgeting process, elderly tax relief, economic development, and open space.

Mr Kortze suggested that there needs to be more in-depth, ongoing analysis of town and education budgets, possibly on a quarterly basis and especially with an eye to considering the “fixed costs” areas of labor contracts, length of the school year as in teaching days, and class sizes.

“Other municipalities statewide are doing this. We need to understand better and explore this in greater detail,” he said.

He also asked First Selectman Herb Rosenthal whether a “financial authority” had, in recent times, been allowed to sit in on teacher negotiations.

The Board of Finance would also hope to hear, he said, from other town planners or experts or residents with ideas and experience who could contribute ideas for any of the four areas under consideration.

 

The Open Space Initiative

The open space initiative had already been broached before the Legislative Council when the council decided to cut the $200,000 in open space funding from the selectman’s budget. The cut was accompanied by a verbal proposal for a major amount of funding –– $5 million, $10 million or a greater amount –– to be put in place after passage of a bond issue to buy large tracts of land for open space, land that might otherwise be developed and be used for housing.

“Open space is a fantastic gesture but that’s all it is, a gesture. We can’t solve all the problems by one approach alone,” Mr Kortze said.

“We should identify critical areas, perhaps through the first selectman’s office, and try to determine the best, most economic uses [of certain properties]. Not every piece of undeveloped property would be attractive as an open space purchase, for example. Certainly not swamp or wetlands.”

If you took 100 acres, he said, and put 40 houses on it, what would happen to the expenses the town would incur if families moved in and there were at least two children in each house.

“Make the comparisons,” he said, “do the numbers and consider the municipal costs.”

Mr Rosenthal said that other nearby towns, such as Trumbull and Ridgefield, have already studied open space bonding. The town of Southbury is currently looking into it.

Redding, Bridgewater, and Roxbury are poised to lock up land through their active land trust organizations, Mr Rosenthal added.

The current suggestion by the Legislative Council to increase the level of tax rebates for the elderly was also “a nice gesture,” Mr Kortze said, “but it is not enough.”

“We need to do the numbers. Double the increase, keep the seniors in their homes.”

Like others have done, he noted the fact that every time the seniors sell their homes, a family with at least two children moves in.

“Let me say right now that I’m not against children,” Mr Kortze commented.

“We need to have the Legislative Council ordinance committee look at this. Hear from Will Rodgers about possible deferral of tax increases, or the use of reverse mortgages. But the preferred method would be tax credits,” he added.

Concerning possible new economic development, Mr Kortze said, “This is the issue that has met with the most resistance in town. If you consider that to create just one mill, you would have to double the top ten taxpayers in town, that just doesn’t seem to work.”

He suggested another look at zoning for different properties, considering what the average revenues might be for the various uses.

Mr Kortze concluded by saying he hoped the board would consider each of the four possible initiatives –– budgeting, elderly tax relief, open space and economic development –– during upcoming monthly meetings so that a combined, four-pronged approach could be presented to the town in time for the next budget cycle.