Selectmen Express Concerns—

Revised Town Budget Request Falls Below Current Year’s Spending

By John Voket

Selectmen Will Rodgers and James Gaston both expressed concerns about the reduction in town services resulting from reductions to the proposed town-side of the municipal budget. The officials also responded to individuals criticizing the use of undesignated capital funds to primarily increase the school district budget.

Newtown’s Police Department, Public Works Department, access to Eichler’s Cove, the Parks & Recreation summer camp program, the Booth Library and Edmond Town Hall will all be affected as the Board of Selectmen eliminated the increase in its 2012-13 budget request, and then some, in a brief meeting Friday, June 8.

First Selectman Pat Llodra said those and several other strategic reductions will bring the town-side operating budget to not only 0.14 percent below the current fiscal year, but to roughly the amount Newtowners paid for town services in 2008.

That is because the town has, since that year, taken other steps to create efficiencies, combine job responsibilities, reduce other costs, and trim the municipal workforce in excess of five percent.

In separate video interviews with The Bee, Selectmen Gaston and Rodgers both encouraged more taxpayers to become involved in the process by getting out to vote in the fourth-round referendum scheduled for June 26. (See Selectman Gaston’s interview at newtownbee.com.)

Mr Gaston reviewed the “rigorous process” the town-side budget endures as it moves from department head requests to the first selectman and finance director, through the Boards of Selectmen and Finance, the Legislative Council, various public hearings including testimonial and presentations by department heads, and eventually to the voters.

“The town-side budget is sifted through five stages before the first referendum,” Mr Gaston said. “Hundreds of hours are set forth and used by the public officials” to review the proposal ahead of the first annual referendum.

Mr Gaston noted the next proposal will be below the current spending plan, and “we are actually at a critical level now. As we went through that five-stage sifting process from what department heads originally believed they needed to fairly provide the services, over a million dollars was cut from their proposed budgets by selectmen.

“As we look at the present budget being offered, we are at a point where we are affecting services,” Mr Gaston said.

‘Nonvoters, Get Involved’

In his interview, Selectman Rodgers appealed to nonvoters, saying, “You have to get involved here. Basically, less than one-third of the town is deciding the town’s future. You’ll be doing the town a great service,” he said.

Mr Rodgers also appealed to both those hoping to influence adding more funds back to the school budget and those still looking to “zero-out” the overall budget request to accept the existing request in the spirit of compromise.

Mr Rodgers additionally appealed to school supporters to turn attention and energy toward helping influence how the Board of Education will allocate its budget once a proposal is approved by voters.

“It’s inconceivable that there are not ways to shift priorities to programs people are concerned about with the size of the education budget,” he said, adding that even a program as costly as full-day kindergarten could be salvaged with strong advocacy from taxpayers and parents.

Addressing the zero-increase voters, Mr Rodgers said any additional savings that might be achieved this year by making further incremental adjustments after another failed referendum would be offset — potentially by the cost of borrowing over a 20-year period — if Newtown finds its bond rating reduced because of its failure to pass a spending plan.

He also noted the cost to mount further referenda, as well as the work town employees are doing because of the protracted process — time, Mr Rodgers said, that could be better spent handling priority duties.

While Tax Collector Carol Mahoney said she is not planning to issue supplemental tax bills, Mr Rodgers said that having the budget impasse move past July 1 will create “logistical and processing issues for any taxpayer whose mortgage company pays local taxes from an escrow account.”

Both selectmen addressed the use of undesignated capital nonrecurring funds that were tapped by the council to infuse the school budget with an additional $200,000, and make available $40,000 for town projects. Council critics have characterized these funds as “found money” that conveniently appeared when the budgetmakers needed it most.

“It’s just not a healthy place to go to default to ‘there is an ulterior motive, improper motives, unethical behavior,’ versus, ‘things happen, it’s a large budget, there has been a change in finance directors relatively recently, significant financial reforms.’

“To me it’s not a stretch to think you are shifting money from one fund to another — and some of it was dedicated and some was not, and there was not a realization as time passed that the money wasn’t dedicated,” Mr Rodgers said. “That’s not a hard stretch for me in a $100 million-plus budget.”

Mr Gaston concurred.

“This is not found money,” Mr Gaston said. “This is unrestricted capital funding which is part of the planning process. We have other restricted capital planning processes that are going forward. It’s all part of the long-term planning process. This unrestricted fund was kept in there in case you came out $100,000 short after all the saving [for a capital project]; we won’t have that now. Basically, we will be without a safety net. That money will now be going into the proposed budget for the education side.”

Getting Below Zero

The cuts made by selectmen June 8 include a $5,000 reduction to mandatory well monitoring following oil spills several years ago on and around the Fairfield Hills campus.

“We’re hoping the budget we have for that will cover it,” Mrs Llodra said. “If not, we’ll have to take a look at it when the time comes.”

The greatest savings will be achieved by eliminating a police officer position with the related benefits and FICA costs, Mrs Llodra said. According to a police department source, the officer in the position slated to be eliminated is resigning, and that position will not be carried as an unfilled post.

The total savings for that reduction amounts to about $74,135.

Three counselors will be cut from the Parks & Recreation summer camp programs, saving $7,350, and the lifeguard budget for Eichler’s Cove beach will be reduced by $2,500. That will result in the beach being closed one hour earlier, or opening one hour later, each day during the summer swimming season.

The Parks & Recreation Department will also lose $10,000 from its capital budget. Director Amy Mangold said she will present a package of options to the Parks and Recreation Commission this week, and that panel will make the final decision on how to apply the reduction.

Mrs Llodra said taxpayer-funded contributions to the Booth Library have been reduced by $5,000 and to the Town Hall Board of Managers by $3,000. She believes those reductions will constitute some reduction in services at both Main Street facilities.

 Like the Parks and Recreation Commission, however, the boards governing those facilities will have to meet to determine where to apply the cuts.

The first selectman said that savings accruing in an account that was designed to help Newtown pay outright for the annual cost of offering bonds will be closed out, generating $10,000 in added savings. She said the consequence will be that the approximately $70,000 in related costs for each bond issue will now be built into payments stretching out over the 20-year life of an average bond issue.

The final reduction to bring the total cuts to $159,685 comes from the Public Works capital line in the amount of $42,700. Mrs Llodra said most of that cost, however, will be offset by $40,000 allocated for capital projects from cashing out most of a capital nonrecurring fund.

Another $200,000 from that fund will be added back to the school district’s budget request, and will be restricted to paying for capital projects.

Once that $40,000 allocation on the town side is applied to the selectmen’s reductions, the town budget request that previously had a $119,685 increase including debt service for all town and school projects becomes $37,891,044.

Removing debt service, the selectmen’s municipal operations costs for 2012-13 stands at a 0.14 reduction over the current year. Following Legislative Council action June 6 to reduce the overall budget request to $106,446,838, the selectmen Friday moved the budget to a fourth referendum Tuesday, June 26.

The council’s action resulted in an overall budget proposal that requests a 0.9 percent tax increase.