Rethinking Budgeting And Taxes

To the Editor:

I would like to share some thoughts and challenges regarding the management process of this town.

It is clear to me that the model used by this town (and other neighboring towns) for raising taxes is being seriously questioned by a large portion of the population. What is the town management going to do about this? Will our town government ignore the polarization of the voters or will they go to work and come up with a modified model? In my view, a new model should ensure that newcomers to town pay their full share of the education budget; also I would suggest that after 25 or 30 years, long-term residents should not have to bear the full burden of school budget increases.

The town meeting format for discussing budget issues is an obsolete procedure. I understand that the town officials are simply following the procedure spelled out in the town bylaws; a town meeting for a town of the size of Newtown is an antiquated procedure and not especially democratic in nature; it is time for the same town officials to propose and drive for a change in these bylaws. Can you imagine if only 20 percent or 10 percent of the Newtowners who recently voted would show up at that meeting?

The town and school budgets should be approved separately. There should be no reason to penalize the town government if their budget is acceptable to most voters while the school budget is out of line and vice-versa.

School management measure of performance (also known as metrics) currently used are inadequate. For example, during these difficult economic times, the dollar spending per pupil, often discussed at meetings and in the press, is not an appropriate measure of performance; a better alternate is to measure the efficiency of the school system by comparing the performance of the system to that of other schools having similar dollar-to-pupil ratios. School management should be rated on how close they place to the “efficiency frontier curve,” which combines dollar spending and scholastic results. Also, just like it is being done in the private sector, the public sector must embrace new initiatives such as “Six Sigma”; for example our schools and town governments could substantially increase the leverage they have with goods and services suppliers by bundling their requirements with neighboring towns and holding auctions with the suppliers.

For nearly 20 years, I have heard that Newtown needs to attract a bigger industrial/commercial base. It appears that the town government has not delivered on that objective, in spite of having some staff dedicated to that task. Perhaps this job could better done by the private sector with an incentive directly tied to successfully increasing the tax base.

I will be interested in your comments.

Sincerely,

Dominique J. Nocturne

36 Key Rock Road, Newtown      June 13, 2003