Following Third Budget Rejection—

Council Adjusts Budget: $200,000 Back To Schools, Town-Side Cut

By John Voket

Stating that the current budget “process is broken,” First Selectman Pat Llodra and Board of Finance Chairman John Kortze presented the Legislative Council a “strategy to climb out of this challenge,” June 6 — one night after a third-round referendum on a $106.6 million budget plan failed by 114 votes, with a total vote of 2,112 for the budget and 2,226 against.

Before the council meeting Wednesday, Mrs Llodra, along with Mr Kortze and Finance Director Robert Tait, crafted a proposal that would nearly close out unassigned funds in a capital nonrecurring account. That action provided the council an added $240,000 to distribute between the school district and town.

The added funding would offset capital expenditures in the respective 2012-13 budget requests, freeing up those allocations in the school budget request to apply to operations or programs.

The proposal, as presented, would also draw down the town-side budget request to a zero percent increase, further lowering taxation and leaving the municipal side of the budget with roughly the same amount of funding provided in 2008.

While the presentation and discussion around how to distribute the funds proceeded for nearly two hours, with several attempted amendments and withdrawing of motions, the final set of actions were approved as follows:

*Reduce the Selectmen’s budget request by $119,685, passed unanimously.

*Permit the Board of Education to use $200,000, and the Selectmen to use $40,000 from the capital nonrecurring fund, passed 8-3.

*Further reduce the selectmen’s budget request by $40,000 to be supplanted by the capital nonrecurring funds, passed unanimously.

That series of actions resulted in a motion to send a $106,446,838 budget request back to voters, presumably in a machine referendum Tuesday, June 26. If approved, the request would reduce a tax increase to 0.9 percent, while maintaining a commitment to infuse the town’s fund balance with $200,000.

The Board of Selectmen is planning a special meeting Friday, June 8, to move the latest budget proposal to a machine vote instead of to a public town meeting.

Not ‘Found Money’

After the meeting, Mr Kortze said it was important for taxpayers to know that the capital nonrecurring fund and the money used in Wednesday’s proposal has existed in the public accounts for some time.

“This is not found money — this is an alternate and creative source which has been audited and has been in plain view since the fund was created years ago before the town had the prerogative to manage its fund balance,” Mr Kortze said.

The final action did not sit well with a group of education supporters, including Robin Fitzgerald, who vowed to lead an initiative to defeat the fourth-round referendum and any subsequent proposal until the council restores enough funding to achieve what was described as a “same-services” school budget for next year.

Council Vice Chair Mary Ann Jacob said a same-services restoration would amount to providing the district $551,214.

Following the meeting, Chairman Jeff Capeci defended the council and town officials’ efforts, calling the new proposal a compromise that lowered a tax increase to below one percent, decreased the town’s operating increase to zero, and provided $200,000 to the school district’s operating budget for next year.

“Pat gave up her budget to reduce taxation and we made a compromise to reduce about 40 percent of the delta of what the school [officials] wanted to maintain a same services,” Mr Capeci said. “This represents what we believe is a fair compromise, and I hope the gesture is supported by the voters at the next referendum.”

Prior to the council’s deliberations, two hours of public participation registered primarily support for preserving or increasing the school district budget, with about half of those proponents saying they would vote No on any subsequent request until funds were restored up to the same-services level.

No Means No

Several residents, however, made pleas to the council to further reduce the overall budget request to a zero increase.

George Schmidt told the council to “count me among the ‘No means No’ contingent.”

“I believe the majority is saying no tax increase,” he said.

A number of residents also touched upon the challenge in interpreting the No votes without questions on the ballot directing the council as to whether their rejection was because the budget amount was too high or too low. Others, including Po Murray, also supported splitting the budget vote or bifurcating between the town and school requests.

“Having questions without bifurcation might be worse,” she said.

Mr Capeci mentioned to several speakers that business related to a charter revision would occur later in the meeting. Once the next-round budget request was finalized, he seated two, four-member panels — one to solicit and interview Charter Revision Commission candidates, the other to craft a charge specifically about bifurcating and adding budget questions.

The council chairman said the timing would be tight, but he hoped to see a new review panel seated by August 1, and reporting back with recommendations in time to get those revision questions on the November general election ballot.

He requested that the two committees begin meeting within the week, or as soon as possible to get the process started.