Finance And Administration—

New Council Panel Will Take

A Hard Look At Cutting Services, Taxes

By John Voket

If it meant paying less in taxes, would Newtown residents be willing to pay for access to hike, play tennis, or bring their children to play at local parks? Would they favor creating a foundation that would underwrite after school activities or certain language study programs in the school system?

How about eliminating the nominal donations the town makes each year to various regional nonprofits that serve select local residents, like the Women’s Center of Greater Danbury, Ability Beyond Disability, and the Regional Hospice. These ideas were all part of a discussion initiated during the first meeting of the Legislative Council’s newly formed Finance and Administration (F&A) Committee.

That group met July 20 and elected former Newtown finance director Benjamin Spragg as its chair, and Kathryn Fetchick as its vice chair. The committee is one of two new groups that were formed to merge functions of several smaller committees that existed previously under old council policies.

Under new council policy, the separate Finance and Administration Committees were merged, as were the former Public Safety, Public Works, and Recreation Committees. The second merged panel is now referred to as the Municipal Operations Committee.

The Education and Ordinance Committees will remain in place, although the makeup of each new group was increased to six members to provide for two committee assignments for each council representative.

The F&A panel consists of Mr Spragg, Ms Fetchick, Jan Andras, Dan Amaral, Gary Davis, and Kevin Fitzgerald. Council Chairman Jeff Capeci also attended to convene the committee as its acting chair until the election of its own leadership, which was the first item of business. Councilman George Ferguson attended as an observer, and First Selectman Pat Llodra was also in attendance for part of the meeting.

Once the leadership was in place, Mr Spragg initiated a brief discussion related to creating a policy by which Newtown’s current municipal borrowing cap would be reduced from ten to nine percent. By unanimous vote, the committee agreed to move the task of crafting that new policy to the Board of Finance.

Mr Spragg said that since the finance board makes such recommendations to the council, it should be that body charged with creating this new policy.

“In the future, we will be referring policy issues to the Board of Finance, not the Finance and Administration Committee,” Mr Spragg said.

The remaining time was occupied by discussion and suggestions about ways the council might affect a reduction or flattening of future property tax increases. That idea, first proposed by Mr Davis, initially sought to determine what it would look like if Newtown committed to reducing overall property taxation by one percent in next year’s municipal budget.

“Should we do the exercise to see what it would look like to reduce property taxes by one percent?” Mr Davis proposed. “What would the impact be to town services and education if we tried to do that?”

35-Hour Week

The only idea tendered prior to the meeting was to determine if any significant savings could be achieved if the municipal workforce had its work hours reduced to a uniform 35 hours per week. Mrs Llodra said, however, that among the five local bargaining groups that the police union should be exempt because it has its own minimum staffing and scheduling requirements.

It was also determined that union members of the Public Works Department have a negotiated 40-hour work week, and that the town clerical staff union also has a negotiated defined work week in its contract. The first selectman said the town is unwilling to go to arbitration over these defined schedules, since the effort would be costly, and there is a slim chance of achieving the desired outcome.

Mrs Llodra said arbitration response to such proposals in previous years has been to reduce staff to achieve savings. As a result, the only group that could see a mandated reduction in its weekly hours is the nonunion group of staffers that includes department heads and some supervisors.

The first selectman said that affecting such a reduction to those 29 individuals would save $134,634 annually, but Mrs Llodra cautioned that it might not be a good idea to reduce supervisory staff to working several hours less than the minimum required for their own group of union employees.

Mr Davis came to the meeting with several other ideas which he offered for discussion, including outsourcing more public works projects to contractors. Mrs Llodra encouraged the committee members to call in Public Works Director Fred Hurley to review the possibilities, and to better understand and analyze whether such a move would be advantageous.

In the end, the committee agreed to initiate one or more meetings with Mr Hurley to explore the implications of increasing contract work for his department’s projects.

Mr Davis also suggested looking into ways to make the local Parks and Recreation Department self-sustaining, leaving only capital parks projects to be underwritten by tax dollars.

“I’m looking to see if they can come up with a fee schedule to sustain that,” Mr Davis said.

Mr Fitzgerald then suggested the panel also needs to look at the school system for its share of possible savings toward the proposed goal. Mr Davis agreed, saying the panel should look at possibly assessing higher fees for “pay to play” sports and other after school or extra curricular programs, even the possibility of establishing a fund that could be used to pay for additional foreign language programs.

Nonprofit Donations

Another suggestion was to look at eliminating the nominal donations that are provided through the town to about a dozen regional nonprofit or human service agencies that make services available to all qualified residents, but in most cases are used by comparatively few,

“The amount we donate is pretty small,” Mr Davis said, “but the question is, should we have government funding nonprofits?”

Ms Fetchick suggested the committee also look into “spending money to make money,” by possibly hiring a dedicated grant writer whose services could be self-sustaining. Mr Spragg countered that the town might look into contracting a freelance grant writer who would work on straight commission, instead of on salary.

Mr Davis’s final idea was to look at reducing or eliminating the $150,000-plus the town contributes each year for Edmond Town Hall.

“I’d be interested to see them become self-sufficient,” he said.

Ms Fetchick then suggested looking at improving the way the town communicates to taxpayers the ways in which it is already looking for and achieving increased savings. And Ms Andras added that it would also mean educating taxpayers about the true implications of the types of cuts Mr Davis asked the committee to consider examining.

During earlier discussion, Mrs Llodra voiced a concern that the committee needed to weigh its ideas for reducing or minimizing future tax increases against the possible erosion of programs that contribute significantly to the quality of life in Newtown. And the first selectman and Ms Fetchick both said the panel needed to look at possible reductions to town services proportionately to the school district, which receives two-thirds of all local tax revenues.

Mr Davis said that every year, the council hears complaints and concerns from residents about the level of local taxation, while admitting that the problem is rooted in Hartford because the only way for towns and cities to raise money is by taxing vehicles, real estate, and personal property.

“This exercise would prove we are taking a hard look at ways to reduce the local tax burden,” Mr Davis said. “We’re looking to change the paradigm.”

Mr Capeci said the second newly formed Municipal Operations Committee may meet just to elect its leadership prior to the August 3 full council meeting. The Education and Ordinance Committees will continue to meet as needed.