Oakview Field Project

Cost More Than $48,000

To the Editor:

This week’s headline article “Council Learns Oakview Field Renovation Cost Is Just $48,000” is misleading at best. Mrs Llodra said, “Now, using staff who added this to their existing responsibilities, we have in-house talent to accomplish this project for $48,000.” On the heels of a tough budget process I would think a little bit more transparency about the true costs might be in order. The numbers being suggested as the cost do not include the town’s costs of our own equipment, labor, supervision, or the town engineer’s cost. The use of town manpower, if it actually saves money is terrific and all involved should be congratulated; however, an accurate cost number is owed to the public. Suggesting we did $330,000 worth of work for just $48,000 is simply confusing the taxpayer.

It is time to let the taxpayers know what the true cost of town projects are. Reports should include what the expenditures of town resources were, fully loaded, in addition to direct costs such as the $48,000. In the real world labor and resources, fully loaded with overhead, would also be reported. How can the taxpayers know if we actually saved money when only parts of the costs are reported? The voters are demanding transparency and this report does not provide that, and in fact misleads the taxpayer into thinking it only cost $48,000. Read the headline.

The identical issue has been going on at Fairfield Hills for years. Our elected officials claim the costs have been dramatically reduced, but fail to report to us the cost of town departments and their fully loaded labor now doing the work. Multiple projects such as laying gas lines have been conducted on the campus and the real cost of Fairfield Hills has been unreported to the public. Repeated requests to elected officials to report the true and full costs of Fairfield Hills have gone unanswered.

Our first selectman has promised better project cost reporting, but it just never seems to happen. In fact the Oakview project is a clear example of how the taxpayers are confused by our elected officials, with complicity by The Newtown Bee, into believing something which is not true. Oakview did not just cost $48,000, but we probably will never know what it really costs.

This last budget cycle demonstrated that the public has lost credibility in our financial management and our budgets. This type of report by The Newtown Bee and our elected officials is a perfect example of why.

Bruce Walczak

12 Glover Avenue, Newtown                                             July 18, 2012